Double Take (2001)

DOUBLE TAKE opens in Hitchcock fashion with a Manhattan businessman finding himself on the run; He is suspected of illegal activities, and has to prove his innocence while being pursued by the authorities. Hitchcock's classic version of this story is NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959). However, in spite of its thriller pedigree, DOUBLE TAKE is something else. Writer-director George Gallo has taken the classic elements, filtered them through the 1990s action and buddy films and produced a frenetic comedy built around the volatile chemistry of Orlando Jones and Eddie Griffin. Jones has the Cary Grant part--he is Daryl Chase, a Wall Street investment banker dealing in international accounts who becomes the fall guy when a Mexican client is revealed as the front man for a drug cartel. Griffin has the Eve Marie Saint part, but his Freddy Tiffany is no ice-cool Hitchcock blonde. Instead, he's the fast-talking streetwise hustler who aids and abets Chase as he is pursued by the police, the FBI, the CIA, and the DEA. DOUBLE TAKE swallows up the clichés of the innocent-on-the-run movie and the buddy movie, then--with Jones and Griffin trading quips and identities--throws them pell-mell on the screen in one long hilarious stream.