Attractively lensed and capably acted, DOUBLE EXPOSURE services a hopelessly muddled screenplay with fairly adroit direction. Like so many assembly-line neo-noirs, the film sacrifices character development to the demands of an overly complicated story line.
Business magnate Roger Putnam (Ian Buchanan) is convinced that his devoted wife Maria (Jennifer Gatti) has adulterous tendencies. He obsessively undermines her self-esteem, putting the kibosh on her pottery business and hiring a private detective to monitor her nocturnal activities. Mac McClure
(Ron Perlman) proves a poor choice for this surveillance job. Earlier, the alcoholic gumshoe botched a case, causing the deaths of his own wife and the wife of a former police associate, whose son, Pat Sellens Jr. (Walter Cox), is now blackmailing him. Linda (Dedee Pfeiffer), Maria's best friend,
is investigating improprieties in Putnam's accounts. Nearing the edge, Roger rapes his wife and orders McClure to hire a hit man; he's certain that Maria is trysting at the Chateau Marmont and wants her lover iced. McClure, who needs money to pay off Pat, takes on the job himself but manages to
kill Maria instead of her phantom lover. While Roger pressures him to find and eliminate the bungling assassin, McClure accidentally shoots Pat and plants evidence linking his blackmailer to Maria. Detective Joiner (Billy Moses) grills Linda; meanwhile, criminological evidence surfaces which
proves that Pat couldn't have been Maria's murderer. Roger now deduces that his late wife's elusive lover was Linda. McClure, arriving to silence suspicious Linda, reveals that he killed Maria himself; Roger has a sudden change of heart and tries to protect Linda. At this impasse, Detective Joiner
intervenes, shooting McClure and then arresting both Putnam and the wounded P.I.
Although DOUBLE EXPOSURE gets a topical boost from the O.J. Simpson saga, its adultery/homicide scenario is retrograde film noir. Unlike the sharply written love-triangle classics of yesteryear, DOUBLE EXPOSURE can't extricate itself from its own plot twists. Far too much time is lavished on
conveying Roger's obsessions, while little of value is mined from Linda's covert search for the truth. The lesbian angle, which might have borne some thematic fruit had it been more fully integrated into the narrative, is simply dropped in at the eleventh hour for shock value. As for the
whacked-out McClure, his run of bad luck borders on the absurd. His relationship with Pat is a serviceable red herring, but does little to enhance suspense. Further vitiating the film's impact are numerous logical lapses and inconsistencies of character, notably Roger's last-minute reversal
regarding Linda. DOUBLE EXPOSURE squeaks by on polished performances, sleek cinematography, and our undying fascination with the conventions of the crime-of-passion genre. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, extensive nudity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
