Double Identity Reviews

A movie as mixed up as its hero, DOUBLE IDENTITY offers an interesting plot marred by lethargic execution. After his car breaks down, mobster Paul Flemming (Nick Mancuso) is stranded in New Hope, a small Canadian town. Flemming, a former college professor, pretends he's still a teacher to hide his criminal background. Farmer's daughter Amy (Leah Pinsent) falls for Flemming, but he returns to the city and his evil mob boss Raymond Ravennes (Patrick Bauchau). After attempting to collect protection money from a Mafia client, however, Flemming has a crisis of conscience and tells Ravennes he wants out. When Flemming's boss frames him for murder, the hood returns to New Hope, believing he can hide his whereabouts from Ravennes and his past from Amy. DOUBLE IDENTITY's plot has promise, but the film moves at such a slow pace that it doesn't succeed on any level. Director Yves Boisset's leaden touch quickly bores the audience. It's vital that we identify with Flemming's plight, but we don't know who he is fast enough. Although we see him with a gun early on, it takes forever to establish what Flemming really does for a living. The core of the movie, Flemming's dual identity, is poorly handled. Rather than using a flashback to show why he switched from teaching to crime, Boisset relies on a conversation between Flemming and Ravennes that raises as many questions as it answers. At the same time, Robert Geoffrion's screenplay portrays the Mafia in a laughably naive way. In shaking down a shopkeeper, Flemming stuffs a pair of women's panties in the guy's mouth and pours sugar over him. When Ravennes confronts Flemming about his dissatisfaction, he shows an inordinate amount of sympathy for a mob leader. Even worse is the cliched depiction of small town life. We've seen all these characters before, from Amy's grizzled, overprotective father Wayne (Jacques Godin) to the nosy innkeeper Hank (Norris Domingue), who exclaims, "I'll have to scratch that new hi-fi, dammit!" when Flemming decides to move out. The actors' uninspired performances don't help matters. Mancuso, all granite jaw and slicked back hair, sleepwalks through most of the movie. When he's finally required to play a big emotional scene, attacking Ravennes in his office and stealing his money, Mancuso just yells. He doesn't seem like a man in torment over a split identity; instead, he appears to be simply vague. Although Flemming's Mafia friends tell him, "You've got a way with words," Mancuso shows little verbal flair. He's also strangely passive for an action anti-hero. When Flemming finally sleeps with Amy, she's the one who leads him to the bed. In the thankless good-girl part of Amy, Pinsent fails to distinguish herself. Constantly clad in L.L. Bean-style parkas, jeans and fisherman sweaters, her hair a dull red page-boy, Pinsent barely changes her expression and reads her lines in a monotone. "What I know about you I love. What I don't terrifies me," she tells Flemming, as if she were reading a recipe. Anne Letourneau displays ordinary vixenish mannerisms as Flemming's former girlfriend Lydia, a lingerie model obsessed with wealth. Only Bauchau, as Ravennes, makes a strong impression. Though Bauchau portrays a fairly standard villain, he invests the part with new life, providing what little energy the movie has. The town of New Hope, Quebec, makes an attractive setting, particularly in the snowy scenes. And Francoise Dompierre's score deserves to be in a better movie; it has a fascinating gloomy quality. (Violence.)