Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s there was a rash of movies staring washed up athletes, wrestlers, and people that were trying to get that Schwarzenegger fame. Sometimes it worked out for them — like it or not. Other times the audience, either at home or in the theaters, were left to wonder. Double Trouble is one that falls in the latter and definitely not the former.
Double Trouble
A man in a suit waits for a ride to the airport. His car shows up and the driver is berated for being late. As they drive off, hoping to make up time before take-off, they fall in traffic behind a hearse and several other cars. The suited man asks for the driver to pull around. The driver responds, “No I can’t. It’s your funeral.”
Double Trouble is about a key to a secret room in the international diamond exchange. The scene above takes place as a man steals the key from its rightful owner. After this transpires, yet another thief — this time a beefy, one-liner dropping, buffoon named David — steals that same key, having no idea what it does. David then calls the police to report the burglary he just perpetrated, but who should respond to the call? His twin brother, Peter, a cop in a midriff LA Raiders sweatshirt. From this point on, the movie devolves into quips back and forth between the brothers in all manner of settings.
Peter and David are forced to join forces to figure out why the original thieves want David dead, and why they want that mysterious key back so badly. They uncover a plot to steal even more diamonds, while implicating a top city official and a very well-off construction business owner. In the end, the strength of family wins out over the power of greed… sort of.
Let me just give you [the reader] a quick run down of the cast here. There is Roddy McDowall, David Carradine, and even Timothy Stack (look him up) and John “Scotty” Doohan. Then you throw in two basically completely unknown meat-heads David and Peter Paul. Two weightlifters that caught the eye of some Hollywood agent and landed in movies. Also the movie was directed by the guy that played Jambi on Pee Wee’s Play house John Paragon. How the hell did McDowall and Caradine get wrapped up in all of this?
Double Trouble is hot garbage. The opening scene, described above, is basically the only redeemable scene in the movie, and that’s only because it doesn’t have one or both of the two dopes in it. I mean, the cop bother wears his Raiders sweatshirt exclusively over the course of a week in the movie. One brother is the “straight man” and the other is the comic relief. At no point did I laugh with the movie, but I found myself many many times laughing at the movie.
It’s really easy to see that the hope of this production was to create some new action/comedy duo on the big screen. Not a single bit of that plan succeeded. The only thing that Double Trouble made me laugh about was watching these two weight-lifters run. I could seriously watch them run down streets on loop on TV. Hilarious. However, watching the entire movie is not advised.
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