Double Tap

Stephen Rea is a philosophical gardener. Because gardening doesn't pay enough, I suppose, he's also a hit man with a signature of leaving a rabbit's foot next to his victims. Heather Locklear is in some law enforcement agency, although which is never quite clear. While she's trying to track him down, he's hired to kill her, so of course they fall in love which is never consummated.

It's a mildly ridiculous script, but director Greg Yaitanes manages some nice touches, like filming Miss Locklear in her group scenes so she is tiny. The leads underact, there are a few performers who will later become notable, like Mykelti Williamson, and the 90- minutes slid by before I noticed.

It doesn't sound like much. A direct-to-video flick with a generic title, starring Heather Locklear. However, Stephen Rea -not the type of actor you would expect in this kind of movie- gives a full-fledged characterization of a hit-man with a conscience and idiosyncratic habits (and I don't mean the double tap to the head of each of his victims; his other skills include gardening...). His relationship with the FBI agent played by Heather Locklear rings true. Add to this a flamboyant directorial style and a good soundtrack, and you get one of the better B movies of the year. Rating: 7.

This is an unbelievably stupid movie. How does an idiotic farrago of a script like this ever get made into a film? Nothing any of the characters says or does is for a moment credible... and yet the piece is apparently aiming to be a "gritty, realistic crime drama". The director sort of has a stab at some meaningful creative input, and I'd guess would probably be quite likely to produce something watchable with a real script... but nothing could save this nonsense. More believable characterisations and narrative would have been produced if the actors had been restricted to mouthing "Gaga. Googoo." for the entire length of the film. I'm really sick of being expected to accept this sort of rubbish as if it were a credible effort at film-making. Not recommended to anyone... if you have low enough standards to watch this, then you should be quite happy watching any flickering image without bothering to pay admission or rental. Well ok, the score is interesting, and Heather Locklear shows signs of a performance better than might have been expected from her record... but really *nothing* could defeat such an abysmal script.

DOUBLE TAP features Heather Locklear in a much grittier than usual role. As FBI agent, Katherine Hanson, she finds herself up against a mysterious hitman whose signature is that of the title.

Hanson and her team must track this person, before every other criminal in town winds up dead! This gets complicated when Hanson gets a bit too close to her quarry.

This is a surprisingly effective thriller, and Ms. Locklear is far better than one might, at first, expect.

Actually, the only complaint is due to the lighting. The late 1990's ushered in the whole every-scene-must-be-dark phenomenon. This film is no exception. So, unless the characters are outside, in full sunlight, they're always cloaked in smoky, shadowy dimness! Even in the daytime! Ugh!

In spite of this, the movie is recommended...

Yet another movie that I had never heard about prior to sitting down to watch it. So I suppose writers Erik Saltzgaber, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and director Greg Yaitanes had every opportunity to entertain and impress me with this 1997 crime thriller.

The writers put together a fair enough script that started out nicely and actually kept a good pace throughout the course of the movie. It was an interesting storyline, though it was a bit generic. I am not saying that it was a bad thing, but I just could have wished for a couple of twists to the storyline along the way, to thrown a curveball at the audience and thus make it less generic. But it definitely was an entertaining enough movie and watchable movie.

The cast ensemble in the movie is quite good. I have to say that I didn't believe that Heather Locklear was capable of carrying a movie such as this with her acting talent. But she proved me wrong, because she definitely carried the role and the movie quite nicely. The movie also has the likes of Mykelti Williamson, Stephen Rea, Terrence Howard, Peter Greene, Robert LaSardo and A Martinez on the cast list. So you have some familiar faces on the screen. The acting performances in "Double Tap" were good.

While "Double Tap" was watchable, I have to say that I doubt that the movie will ever grace my screen a second time. Why? Well, because there just simply wasn't enough meat on the storyline, and the generic aspect of the narrative just doesn't support more than a single viewing.

My rating of director Greg Yaitanes's 1997 movie "Double Tap" lands on a five out of ten stars.