Double Cross Reviews

Tripping over its innumerable double crosses, DOUBLE CROSS is a contemporary film noir over-achiever. Sleek direction, a capable cast, and a veneer of true-crime verisimilitude compensate for lots of ersatz eroticism and trumped-up surprises. Released from prison after serving a term for white-collar crime, former Wall Street trader Jack Conealy (Patrick Bergin) plans a quieter existence as a video-store owner in a one-horse Nevada town. En route to his destination, Jack has a fender-bender, and then a tryst, with Vera Blanchard (Kelly Preston); he agrees to lie for her because she claims she doesn't want to anger her "father" with another citation. By the time Jack hires Melissa (Jennifer Tilly) to stock his store, the local sheriff is already trying to bully him out of town. Vera returns for a second go-round, and Jack becomes embroiled in an insurance fraud that encompasses murder. Requiring a patsy for an alibi, Vera and her lover, Brian Cody (Kevin Tighe)--the man she earlier insisted was her father--persuade Jack that it's in his best interest to stick to the story that Cody was driving on the night of the accident. A relentless insurance investigator, Bernard March (Matt Craven), arrives to question Jack's version of events; he's trying to prove that Vera and Brian conspired to kill Cody's socialite wife, Ruth Lunquist, with her own heart medication. During the inquest into Ruth Lunquist's apparent suicide, Jack is beaten up by the local authorities, who are all on Cody's payroll. Jack decides to set Cody up and pretends to be an anonymous witness blackmailing him for $500,000. When Cody arrives at the airport with the dough, March and the state police arrest him for flight to avoid prosecution. Cody subsequently reveals that he's secretly married to the mendacious Vera, who concocted the murder plot herself; later, Cody blows his brains out. Jack then learns that March is actually a co-conspirator, aiming to skim off a portion of the $9 million Lunquist estate, which has passed to Vera. Furthermore, Vera has planted money in Jack's bank account; she intends to kill Jack in a timed explosion and pin the crimes on him posthumously. In a showdown, Vera drives off with Melissa as hostage while Jack escapes, leaving March to die in the blast meant for him. When a careening car chase culminates in a crash, Jack only has time to save Melissa; wicked Vera dies in a fiery automobile combustion. Fluidly edited and dynamically photographed, DOUBLE CROSS is gripping despite its surfeit of plot mechanics. While it's mightily satisfying to observe Jack wriggling off the hook, it's irritating to note how stupidly he gets caught--why doesn't he come clean about his falsified testimony sooner? Somehow, too, the fetching Kelly Preston doesn't seem Lorelei enough to fool a guy who's been around the block a few times. Perhaps Vera is meant to be read as a projection of Jack's desires (everything in the motel room where Vera struts her stuff turns into a phallic symbol; she flexes her long limbs like a yoga instructor in a bordello), but viewers may want to shake Jack for not settling down sooner with the sexy, quirky Melissa, a gal Friday Sam Spade might have smiled at. Cutting incisively through this film's script gyrations is Matt Craven's indelible turn as the two-timing insurance officer. Craven's performance nails the role so effectively it's as if we're watching the Edward G. Robinson of DOUBLE INDEMNITY turn into the Edward G. Robinson of LITTLE CAESAR right before our eyes. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, extreme profanity.)