Matty can’t stop staring at Commando helmer Mark L. Lester’s peculiar thriller — and, indeed, star Craig Sheffer’s equally peculiar haircut.

Suspension of belief is a funny old thing. I can accept just about any plot development, implausibility be damned, but give me a character with a dodgy hairstyle — or, worse, a character in a bad wig — and I’m taken right out of the movie. It’s clearly some sort of psychological sore point, what with me being bald.

In DOUBLE TAKE, Craig Sheffer is saddled with an especially outrageous barnet, a bizarre pudding bowl/curtains combo somewhere between Wilko Johnson and Ben from A1. Offensively ‘90s, the ‘do is incredibly distracting, to the point where it takes me a good fifteen minutes to settle into the film whenever I watch it. And yet the Chigurhian coif is perfectly — perfectly! — in tune with Sheffer’s role: a cranky, socially aloof writer caught up in a Hitchcocktail of murder, mistaken identity, blackmail, and political chicanery.

Gimmicky?

Absolutely.

The bouffant essentially serves as visual shorthand for the part’s blend of cantankerous kook and neurodivergent sex symbol. However, as well as giving Sheffer — who, incidentally, rocks a similar mane in The Program (1993) and Sleep With Me (1995) — a memorable aesthetic, the look provides Double Take’s helmer, Mark L. Lester, with something to swing off. It’s at once glaring, strange and quirky; qualities emblematic of the film itself. 

Having whet his whistle with The Ex (1996), action specialist Lester returns to the thriller genre with aplomb. Though the weakest of his back-to-back-to-back form trifecta (it and The Ex are completed by Misbegotten (1997)), Double Take finds the producer/director doing a reasonable De Palma impression. Accentuated by another brilliant, classic Hollywood-feeling score by Paul Zaza (the composer also soundtracks The Ex and Misbegotten), Lester goes all in, blasting over the film’s flaws by emphasising pace and entertainment. Penned by siblings Edward and Ralph Rugoff – the former a co-scribe of Mannequin (1987), the latter now an art gallery owner in London – Double Take’s script is riddled with overwrought dialogue (“One minute we’re talking Buddhist philosophy, the next minute he’s gone”); a smug tone; and one twist too many. That said, the Rugoffs’ writing offers a handful of deliciously fruity flourishes, and, a la Sheffer, their weirdo approach to characterisation affords Lester and co-stars Costas Mandylor and Dan Lett plenty of chances to play. An actor I usually lump alongside Michael Pare as blandness personified, Mandylor actually manages to submit a performance here, in his dual turns as the film’s antagonist(s). Lett, meanwhile, is great value as a detective who’s surprisingly forgiving of Sheffer’s eccentricities.   

The fourth venture in Lester and his American World Pictures outfit’s ten-pack deal with Trimark, Double Take, like The Ex and Misbegotten, was shot in Canada and co-produced with Canuxploitation icons, Cinépix. The film hit tape in the U.S. via Trimark’s pact with LIVE Entertainment, landing on shelves on 17th February 1998. It arrived on video in the U.K. through frequent Trimark peddler High Fliers at roughly the same time. Unlike preceding Lester/Trimark joints – which also include fellow American World-ers Night of the Running Man (1995) and Public Enemies (1996), and pre-AWP epic Extreme Justice (1993) – Double Take didn’t premiere on HBO ahead of its cassette release. Instead, it started screening on the network’s sister channel, Cinemax, from October ‘98.

USA/Canada ● 1997 ●Thriller ● 86mins

Craig Sheffer, Costas Mandylor, Brigitte Bako ● Dir. Mark L. Lester ● Wri. Edward Rugoff & Ralph Rugoff