Double X: The Name of the Game (1992) User Reviews

What an odd little film

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 5 December 2015]

DOUBLE X: THE NAME OF THE GAME is one of those long-forgotten independent films that came out during the 1990s, when a lot of young directors suddenly found themselves with the means to make their own movies unconstrained by the studios. This one's directed by a guy better known for his work on the BBC TV series DOCTORS and apparently based on a novel by an author nobody's heard of, which doesn't bode well.

It turns out to be an unwieldy little gangster film featuring Norman Wisdom in the leading role. Norman Wisdom! Yes, I couldn't quite believe it myself either. It's very odd to see Wisdom playing it straight and as an elderly hero type, although casting him as the young woman's father instead of grandfather was a very odd decision. There are even a couple of action scenes which are incredibly embarrassing for the old-time comedian. Bless him. He's not the world's greatest actor, but you love him anyway because he's Wisdom.

The film features a second lead in the form of CARRIE star William Katt. He's obviously been shoehorned into the plot in a bid to appeal to American audiences who'd no doubt scratch their heads at the prospect of seeing some old duffer as the main character. Katt feels wooden and uncomfortable, but being a fan of the actor I liked him anyway. The film begins quite promisingly with explosions and car chases and the like before descending into inanity with a boring, drawn-out back story with some very unsatisfying plot twists.

Basically, Wisdom plays a bad guy surrounded by even more ruthless gangster types. A bit of back-and-forth back-stabbing plays out, along with some mild thriller elements, but it's not particularly believable and the story seems to literally fall apart as it goes on. To compensate for this, a bunch of familiar faces have been brought into play. Bernard Hill and Simon Ward are here, alongside cameos for Derren Nesbitt and Vladek Sheybal, and the gorgeous RED DWARF actress Chloe Annett. Their presence doesn't make DOUBLE X a good film, but it is a fun oddity to seek out.

Interesting little low budget UK thriller.

[calumbrown09 · 5/10 · 22 August 2013]

OK, before launching into anything lets just point out that this was made on a budget that would struggle to produce an episode of EastEnders. Filming anything on a small budget and producing something that looks this shiny, with so many professional looking stunts, should be complemented on cinematography and the sheer amount of work that is going to have gone into this production. However, that's about as far as the complements can go. The scenery and setting for the first half is brilliant, having a good looking (if slightly clichéd) car chase through Portpatrick followed up by an intriguing Tarantino like style of narrating Norman Wisdom's background involving the London mob rounded off with an eventful stand- off in an abandoned castle. It is from here on out that the film starts to fail. The American character is not well acted and up to this point, despite the nice twist, he was not heavily part of the story. Now that he is trust onto the screen as the main character, nearly every line is delivered so unconvincingly that it takes away from every scene any sense of atmosphere. Bernard Hill and Simon Ward bring a little bit of fun with their characters, even if Hills' Irish accent is a bit iffy. The music is stereotypical 90's but hasn't dated so badly that its painful to listen to, quite honestly the music timing is spot on perfect and adds plenty of tension to the most important scenes. The second half of the film is a complete let down and the steam really runs out around an hour into the running time, with too many stupid dialog plot holes and bad editing the movie ends on a note that makes you realize that after Scotland is left behind, you should just have turned it off. The ending is so abrupt it'll actually make you sit back and wonder what the hell just happened. Overall, the first half is an entertaining piece of cinema with Wisdom and Hill stealing the show alongside the stunning Scottish scenery. The stunt work is impressive for such a low budget and the music is hit and miss in providing moods. However, the rest of the cast and crew don't seem to know what they are doing and the script is so bare and corny that missed opportunities are rife throughout the entire film. Double X garners a bad reputation but its not all rightly deserved, its definitely worth a watch if nothing else is on and a must for any Norman Wisdom fans out there to see him turn his hand to a serious role - and he's very good at it.

Watchable but just about.

[powerfulupton · 5/10 · 26 January 2018]

O.k. i watched the film last week because lots of people said it was a terrible film and i like bad films plus i like norman wisdom and was looking forward to seeing him play a diffrent style of role than he usually plays. Wisdom plays a gangster, well a safecracker in a gang he is sort of the brains behind the operation a mild mannered quiet fellow who hasent got quite the sort of mean spirit the rest of the gang have. So the story is this, a man visiting scotland from chicago who was a policeman meets wisdom in a empty hotel restraunt, he chats to him and is interested in him somewhat (we find out why later, i dont want to give it away but it is a nice twist). Anyway wisdom is acting edgy and after the fella buts into wisdoms business wisdom takes him hostage and orders him to drive wisdom to the ferryport, while driving wisdom tells the man his story, how wisdom was a safecracker for a gang but felt they were going to kill him after his next job so he sort of set the gang up (more on that later) and ran away from the gang but not before they kidnapped his daughter hilariously tying her up and putting her in a "silence of the lambs" style dungeon conveniantly put in the basement of a club the gang member owns. So wisdom has escaped the gang but they are after him, so he has to form a unlikely truce with the american so wisdom can escape to safety but things dont exactly turn out as planned. Thats all i really can tell you as the twist about halfway through is best kept for you to watch for yourself. Now for the film itself, wisdom puts in a tired performance to be honest, if you want to see him tackle a serious role watch "going gently" or if you want to see him in a diffrent light to his usual films watch "whats good for the goose" thats a great film as its sort of a naughty sex comedy quite diffrent to wisdoms usual style of film. I think because of wisdoms previous slapstick films it can be at times difficult to take him seriously, there were numerous parts in the film where i was half expecting him to shout "MR GRIMSDALE" and fall down a set of stairs but unfortunatly it didnt happen, he was quite old in this film and im afraid it shows, theres a part in the film where he has to slap a woman and its such a feeble slap im surprized they didnt reshoot it. As for the other actors in the film the always good "bernard hill" (yosser hill from boys from the blackstuff) plays a gangster called ignatious "iggy" smith and he is a shining example of how a actor should play that sort of role, im serious his performance really makes the film so so SO good, he maniacally chews his way through every scene and is a joy to watch, he is a disabled gangster with a bad leg (ha) so bad is his leg all someone had to do when confronted by him in a scene was to push him over and he was lifeless as a darlek, he has all the good lines here whether throwing his boss out of a helicopter or taking part in hilarious slow motion gun fight in a warehouse where his bad leg seems to hilariously get better he is phenomenal in the role. Chloe annett sleep walks through her role, as do most of the actors and i think thats the main problem here because apart from bernard hill and norman wisdom (for the time he is in the film) the other actors and actresses just dont do much. So its a watchable film, but it whould have been a lot better off as a 2 part crime thriller on bbc or itv, thats the level we are at here people, a highlight for me was a ridiculously english drive by shooting where the gunmen open fire on 2 men from a bargeboat on a english river !!!!. If you do like the film another film to check out is the hilarious chris twemlow masterpiece (cough cough) the 1983 film that is g.b.h. that film is the bees knees and makes this film look like citizen kane, you have been warned.

There Was a Crooked Man

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 6 December 2020]

You probably thought every film Norman Wisdom ever made had been on TV at least a dozen times in the past five years. But his personal favourite of his own films was an independent production in which he played a safecracker trying to go straight called 'There Was a Crooked Man' which flopped in 1960 and which problems over rights have kept off TV screens for over fifty years.

Shot at Bray Studios and in Scotland, parts of 'Double X' resemble a semi-remake of the earlier film; although in 1960 Wisdom would have played a character called Norman rather than Arthur, and Robert Asher would have breezed through it in about half the time. A serviceable cast (including Bernard Hill camping it up in the role Garry Marsh would have played in the fifties) disappear and then reappear throughout this tinny, talky film which looks and sounds as if it was shot on a camcorder by film students; and is more dated after less than thirty years than the earlier film probably is after over sixty.

Watch it for Wisdom.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 5/10 · 31 December 2018]

I ordered this purely and simply to see the much missed British great in a serious role. As a production, it suffers from the usual problems associated with a low budget, it looks very cheap and nasty. It starts off as a very interesting story, but soon turns into a cheap gangster thriller, with a plot more fitting to a film from the 1940's. Even the likes of Simon Ward and Bernard Hill cannot help save it, Norman Wisdom is the only saving grace, he is delightful as the tragic Clutten. The best moment is the car chase, which looks really rather good, but sadly it's downhill from there on. I know it's 1992, but it looks like it was filmed on a camcorder.

The ending, is terrible. 5/10

Not the worlds worst movie ever made.... but certainly playing in the same cinema

[rleather · 3/10 · 2 June 2005]

Well. I caught this on a new satellite channel called "Badmovies.com". What can I say, it's brilliant. In that its probably the worst film ever made. Well, there are worst. I could rattle off some bigger names, but why bother. You know them already.

Back to the movie. It's a stinker. Apart from the old 'bible stuffed in the shirt' routine to avoid being stabbed and the often hysterical dialog its just about the daftest plot going. But hey! He should have stuck with being Perry Mason's side kick.

My personal favorite part is the bullet that clearly must have gone through his left lung but only left superficial damage! Then he hops into a dirty cold lake with no affects. Must be a good diet or something.

At last, one of the mythical Double X fans breaks cover

[KenLiversausage · 1/10 · 6 February 2004]

I'm so happy, a beast I had always believed to be entirely mythical, like the centaur or the Loch Ness Monster, has given us positive proof of its existence. It's a miracle - there really is a fan of Double X the Name of the Game in the universe, and he appears to go by the name of "Dave". The mystery deepens, however, as "Dave" is clearly not from planet earth. No human being could ever have written the review Dave wrote, not even with his tongue buried in his cheek.

This "film" - for it is barely deserving of that moniker - is so utterly, totally, atrociously, egregiously, mind-bogglingly dreadful it is astounding it ever got made, let alone broadcast. I saw it on one of its rare outings late at night in the UK on Sky Movies 692 or somewhere equally obscure, and I have to conclude that it was a programming accident that allowed it onto the air. Not even the numpties who schedule endless rounds of garbage on the second-string Sky channels could possibly have thought anybody - and I mean anybody - would sit through this pile of unadulterated effluent.

Writer/director Shani S Grewal - whoever he may be - should be barred from ever picking up a camera or pen ever again for inflicting this celluloid silage heap on us.

I am absolutely amazed that anybody has bothered to vote on this film at all, and shocked into a death-like paralysis that a few people have given it a rating of 10! 10!! Even if one of them was Mr. Grewal himself, and "Dave" is another, that still leaves at least some other certifiable loonies out there. Please, if you were one of them, explain yourself. Was it some kind of sick joke?

Simon Ward and William Katt? Well, they were well on their way to has-been status when this film was made. But Bernard Hill? Bernard "Yosser Hughes" Hill? Bernard "King Theoden" Hill? Bernard old bean, you really should be ashamed of yourself.

A Stinker

[filmbuff1970 · 1/10 · 24 May 2002]

This is one of the worst British movies i have ever seen. Norman Wisdom is wasted in this Tepid Thriller.It tries to be clever but comes across as stupid and dull.William Katt is a Poor lead but the script is even worse and the director should not give up there day Job.1 out of 10

"Long Good Friday" it ain't

[heedarmy · 29 December 2003]

"Iggy fronted the organisation but the brains behind it was a man called Edward Ross - cold, calculating and totally ruthless."

At times, "Double X" is so inept and clumsy that it looks like a 10-year-old's concept of a gangster thriller. In "The Long Good Friday", you believed in the organisation headed by Bob Hoskins' superbly frightening Harold Shand - by contrast, Simon Ward's bunch look like a set of kids playing at being criminals. The idea that a man whose criminal empire seems to encompass a dozen people and a small nightclub is planning to build new cities across the world is as ludicrous and overblown as the film's pretensions.

On the credit side, "Double X" manages a neat twist two-thirds of the way through as well as a couple of good performances - Chloë Annett as Sarah takes the film more seriously than it deserves whilst Bernard Hill has lots of fun as the limping and sardonic Iggy. But the photography is strangely drab despite some nice locations and the soundtrack is awful. The makers should check out Ian David Diaz's excellent "The Killing Zone" for an example of how to make this type of film.

Finally, watch out for the scene where Norman Wisdom slaps his double-crossing lover Gemma Craven. This has to be the wimpiest, most laughable "slap" in motion picture history! The fact that the director didn't ask for a retake sums up the problems with "Double X".

Bernard Hill is excellent

[insect-09018 · 6/10 · 17 March 2022]

For some reason, the director remade the not very good to begin with short film 'Vengeance' almost exactly, then expanded it with a lot of gangster hokum. Throw in Norman Wisdom playing it straight (as if guest starring in The Bill), an overheated plot like a teetering Jenga stack of cliches, and on first viewing you have the kind of stinker that negated the very idea of a British film. Having seen it multiple times, however, it's virtues become apparent - top of the list being Bernard Hill, having fun as the villainous Iggy. Every actor here seems to be acting in a different film of their own. There's an ever shifting inconsistency of tone throughout - like it was written in total seriousness but the absurdity of the material made it impossible for the cast to play it straight. In fact I think most of it was made up on the spot. It's not sleazy or violent enough to be a trash classic, but is still far better and more credible than anything Guy Ritchie ever did.

It's ok

[dgreenhalgh-13753 · 5/10 · 18 June 2020]

Why do some reviewers stupidly tell u the whole story of the film? . Stick to watchable, didn't enjoy it, great movie, etc u know who you are!

It was ok , done!

Excellent thrills from start to finish.

[dave-1723 · 10/10 · 26 July 2006]

Why, why, why have people rated this movie so badly, please, if you are reading this review i strongly advise that you ignore all previous reviews and give this film a go and make your own mind up. Starring the ever brilliant Norman wisdom in his finest performance and Chloe Annett from Red Dwarf fame this fantastic thrill a minute story will not disappoint. There's plenty of twists and surprises, it really is a joy to watch. I have probably seen this film 12 times and will certainly watch it 12 times more, it just gets better with each viewing.How people can say this is one of the worst films of all time is beyond me, maybe the reviews are just from the less intelligent of our species. Thanks for reading.

"Love can't buy me money"

[fostrhod · 5/10 · 8 March 2019]

Norman Wisdom's swan song. Playing it straight and badly to be fair . The "brains" behind a major London gang of criminals. He wants out. Sadly he won't get to leave.

The films low production values and poor acting and atrocious script make it worth watching for all the wrong reasons

Mr Grimsdale! Get me out of this!

[barkiswilling · 3/10 · 21 March 2022]

Sadly, our Norman's return to the big screen after 20 odd years is a rather flat, damp squib of an affair. The acting falls into three categories a) awful, b) over-the-top ham and c) both of the above.

The production values are fairly bargain basement and the whole film has that dreadful "made for video " look about it. Heaven knows why some fine character actors such as Bernard Hill, Simon Ward , Darren Nesbitt and Gemma Craven chose to partake in this dross; and a crying shame that this was the cinematic swan song of that very fine actor Vladek Sheybal after such notable previous career highlights.

Incidentally, Norman Wisdom, who gets top billing, is curiously and unconvincingly allocated a girlfriend and a daughter several generations removed from his own; he also abruptly disappears halfway through. Sensible chap.

Terribly Dated

[crumpytv · 1/10 · 29 October 2021]

It started off interesting, although well past a view by date.

The introduction of Bernard Hill in the cellar scene had me switching it off.

The acting was so bad and I was considering they may have been playing it for laughs, but sadly not. Hill was so bad I thought he was trying to do a manic Peter Sellers impression.

Why such a high rating?

[malcolmgsw · 1/10 · 4 May 2019]

Shouldn't it be 0.4 rather than 4.0?No doubt the vote of the Norman Wisdom fan affected this.Norman Wisdom,the little man with the big ego,unsuccessfully tries his hand at straight drama.The film is an unmitigated disaster and unwatchable.

Amazingly so good why no oscars

[shoneyz · 10/10 · 12 December 2020]

Or even a bafta this film has the quality of a blockbuster and a cast that many directors would clap their hands at the music score reminds of a west end musical with a evocative tune that keeps the audience on its toes. Bernard hill accent was as good as i have seen he captured the Irish accent as good as he steered the titanic. The American import was as good as his curly hair do and as real as a platypus. Simon ward looked like a blubberman from blobbyland. Now our norman his acting seemed more out of desperation than skill but still so watchable and great memories of his long gone skill. Well then my review is based on watching this twice and dispending any sense of sense and saying its a movie its a movie and i had the power to end this at anytime but the remote just wouldn't oblige. My advice just watch it through once it does contain glimpses of magnificence.