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Bad company

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

CIA operative, Kevin Pope (Chris Rock), is suave, brilliant and right on the verge of completing a top secret mission to keep a rogue nuclear weapon off the black market when he is suddenly killed. With the clock ticking and no other options available, the CIA reluctantly enlist Kevin's long-lost identical twin brother, Jake (Chris Rock), to take his place. But since Jake is the mirror opposite of Kevin, a working class Joe, it's an uphill challenge to train him as a secret agent and get him in the field before disaster strikes.

Remade from the 1935 Hitchcock original and the 1959 and1979 remakes.

Persons of interest

Chris Rock .... Kevin Pope, Jake Hayes
Anthony Hopkins .... Gaylord Oaks
Matthew Marsh .... Dragan Adjanic
Peter Stormare .... Adrik Vas
John Slattery .... Roland Yates
Gabriel Macht .... Ageant Seale
Garcelle Beauvais .... Nicole
Brooke Smith .... Officer Swanson
Kerry Washington .... Julie
Adoni Maropis .... Jarma
Daniel Sunjata .... Officer Carew
Devone Lawson Junior .... Officer Parish
Wills Robbins .... Officer McCain
Dragan Micanovic .... Michel "The Hammer" Petrov
Michael Browning .... Screenwriter
Jason Richman... Writer
Joel Schumacher... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

FYI: The CIA is often referred to as "The Company" by those in the intelligence community (see also Company man)
NB: Because of the attacks on the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon, the release of this film may have been delayed or altered
Studios and distributors:

Touchstone * Buena Vista International

Intelligence analyst

Secret Agent Acid Thunder

Theatrical report

Despite falling asleep through the rise-to-climax section, I really enjoyed this movie. Why did I fall asleep? Well, I was called in to see this film about 2 hours before it started and I really wanted to see it, but I'd had only a couple of hours sleep from the night before. The nap didn't distract me much, however, as the Director of Intelligence kept waking me up.

Chris Rock is a good counter balance to Anthony Hopkins' dark nature and dark comedy. He makes light of every situation no matter how tense, and even though I'm not the largest Chris Rock fan, I still think he pulled off the two roles well. I wonder how much of a break he was given between shooting both characters? I doesn't surprise me that the audience laughed, even during the tense scenes. He almost seemed to be laughing at himself, which - at the time - made me wonder if he was really trying to be serious, or if Australian audiences are more than happy to poke humour at American drama.

A must see for those couples who want comedy, drama and action... but not Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich and Rene Russo. Let me re-phrase that... it's not so much of an action film... but the amount of action in it rates along side In the line of fire.

It almost makes the CIA look good, but not really.

The ending leaves room for a sequel, but what would they write about? More to the point, would they? Total recall, had heaps of room for a sequel, but did they bother? No. On the other hand, Lethal weapon. While it was a great series, there was not that much that had not been done in the first one: house being damaged, trailer being trashed and Riggs dislocating his shoulder. So who knows? Hopefully when Hollywood goes belly up, and splits to the North and South, the new writers will patch up the mistakes of the old.