From Robert Scucci
| Published
If Tommy is Wiseau The room When it hit theaters in 2003, it didn’t take long for audiences and critics alike to embrace “The Citizen Kane of bad movies.Wiseau, who wrote, directed, produced, edited, personally financed and starred in the film, decided to backtrack and say that the film was always intended to be a dark comedy rather than the serious drama it originally intended wanted to create. However, there is one film that more than confuses me The roomand it’s Neil Breens Double.
Double, Breen’s 2005 debut has similar trappings to Wiseau’s work, but plays it so straight that I’m actually not sure if he’s sincere and delusional or our generation’s Andy Kauffman in the sense that he’s been loving his audience for two decades trolls the game.
Suspense or satire?
Double is said to be a suspense thriller about shadow operations, computer hacking, bioterrorism, grief and revenge. The film’s synopsis on IMDB states that it is a “controversial story of a lonely genius who shuts down the Las Vegas Strip…The government can’t stop him while he reunites with his dead girlfriend every night.”
On paper and at face value, Double sounds like a mix hacker and the John Wick films, but what is shown on the screen couldn’t be further from the description of the film. I can only assume that this synopsis was also written by Neil Breen, who like Wiseau wrote, directed, produced, edited, personally financed and starred in his own film.
Terrorism with a side of tuna
Neil Breen portrays Aaron Brand in Doubleand he is a jack of all trades and master of all trades. He’s a genius who has remote access to every government satellite, and his list of achievements is about as ridiculous as his denim vest that adorns his various Medals of Honor (of which there are many). After Aaron becomes so “digitally and electronically powerful,” the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Secret Strategic Support Branch, with whom he has worked so closely in the past, feels threatened by his abilities and murders his girlfriend.
In a flashback, Aaron floats completely naked, face down in a swimming pool next to his dead girlfriend after shouting “uggghhh!” when she is fatally shot by a sniper hiding in the distance.
After receiving orders from another country to close the Las Vegas Strip for two months, Aaron goes to work with his “small, simple, brilliant setup” consisting of five laptops, a handful of flip phones and a few Dish Network satellite is attached to the trunk of his Mercedes.
Aaron leads a lonely life in the desert, secretly carrying out his many terrorist attacks. He drives around eating dry tuna straight from the can, even though he’s also a millionaire. Although Breen’s numerous exposition dumps suggest that Aaron Brand is a skilled mercenary extraordinaire, the greatest threat to humanity is that he tries to drive and eat at the same time, which completely undermines the film’s premise.
Are you lacking self-confidence or have you fallen for a joke?
It may sound like I’m making this all up, but Double is full of contradictions and surprises that make me wonder if Breen is in on the joke.
Double Anthrax-injected strawberries, botched assassination attempts on newly married couples, secret government meetings held in broad daylight in grocery store parking lots, breaking into a Ferrari with a flip phone, curing brain cancer with a mysterious pebble and Neil Breen in the back seat sits in the car while I frantically type on several laptops that never seem to be turned on.
If you’re a “Breeniac” like me, you’ll notice that the kind of technical expertise presented in Double runs like a common thread through all six of Neil Breen’s films Fateful insightswhich are equally nested.
Double down on double down
Tommy Wiseau may have made contact again The room as a dark comedy, but Neil Breen has repeatedly emphasized that he is a real filmmaker and that he is the right guy. Whether he’s in on the joke or not, I’m grateful for the fact that I was born into a world in which Neil Breen exists, because I’ve enjoyed reading through his filmography so much that I could be certifiably crazy myself .
While you can’t find Double You can listen to it anywhere on streaming GenreVision Podcast if you’re willing to fall into the same Breen hole I’m currently trying to escape.
