Double Trouble

David Paul essays David Jade, a big, not-so-dumb hardworking cop (with Schwarzenegger posters on his apartment walls). Peter thesps as Peter Jade, David's black-sheep twin, a show-off cat burglar who phones the police to brag about his robberies and clowns for the security cameras. During a jewel heist Peter comes across an odd object and pockets it. The thingamajig turns out to be a top secret key to a vast underground diamond repository. Evil businessman Philip Chamberlain (Roddy McDowell) plans to use it to grab an incalculable fortune for himself, in what he calls "the most brilliantly conceived and successful ripoff since the invention of junk bonds." To this end Chamberlain kills David's partner on the force and threatens the key-snatching Peter.

So the strapping siblings from opposite sides of the tracks team up to defeat the bad guy. It's not that difficult because the double-crossing Chamberlain rubs out his own co-conspirators with almost mundane regularity, boiling the whole thing down to a one-against-two faceoff with the Jade boys. Also in the heroes' favor is some rather desperate plotting that sees them inexplicably escaping from a sealed vault and somehow arriving at Chamberlain's getaway plane well ahead of the villian.

DOUBLE TROUBLE may stumble over its own storyline, but as no-brainer entertainment it does provide diversion. The real creativity went into casting. That typically gruff police chief who orders David and Peter to work together is none other than James Doohan, finally taking a belated respite from his long-running role as Chief Engineer Scott in the "Star Trek" universe. David Carradine has a Hannibal-Lecter-type bit as Peter's smooth criminal mentor, locked up in prison but still available to dispense underworldly wisdom. Former child star Bill Mumy makes a memorably baby-faced assassin. A.J. Johnson, as David's slain partner Danitra, impresses with her buoyant attitude and mile-high platform shoes. Unfortunately, she's Black--the mark of sure doom for partners in airhead cop adventures. The officer who succeeds Danitra turns out to be a milquetoast preppie, and actor Collin Bernsen wrings bona fide laughs from the trite stock character.

Then there are the Pauls, a couple of human tanks previously showcased in vehicles like THE BARBARIANS and THINK BIG. Their comic sense is well developed also, though this screenplay foolishly serves up pathos as the duo reminisce about their late Alzheimer's disease-afflicted father. Outlaw Peter is a dapper bon vivant, while lawman David is a straight-arrow slob; both, however, agree on a sanctimonious anti-steroids statement injected into the dialogue early on--even though wastrel Peter claims he exercises his monstrous muscles not through honest workouts but with rhythmic electric shocks. This dubious bit of phys ed accounts for the presence of a high-voltage contraption in Peter's pad that he employs to torture a Chamberlain henchman, in a scene that's more sadistic than funny.

The violence in DOUBLE TROUBLE is distatefully, needlessly extreme (guest star Troy Donahue gets murdered in particularly sickening fashion), ruling out the picture for children, who otherwise would be the ideal audience for the singular Brothers Paul. (Excessive violence, profanity.) leave a comment