I suppose this would qualify as one of the lesser works to emerge from Bruno Mattei’s first Philippines period, which would peak the following year with the nigh-pornographic bicep-rippling gunplay of Robowar (and whatever bits of the maniacal Zombi 3 he directed). In fairness, Double Target is lesser than those perhaps only in that it hasn’t enjoyed the same notoriety as they in the decades since. VHS editions were scarce. A modern home video edition? Unthinkable. As with any Vincent Dawn joint, traditional qualitative assessments are hazy. Shake again later.
The film follows ex-military not-public television personality Bob Ross (Miles O’Keeffe, Ator l’invincibile) as he returns to southeast Asia to find the son he was forced to leave behind ten years prior, only to be roped into a covert state department mission to uncover whether or not selectively bilingual Russian officers (led by Bo Svenson, Walking Tall part 2) are raising an army of international terrorists in the jungles of Vietnam. Guest-starring are a hell of a lot of fireballs, sweat and squibs, with Donald Pleasance (Prince of Darkness) in the role of a wheezing senator with a silly name, and a walk-on appearance by l’Ultimo Squalo’s exploding torso.
Double Target is, in a grand failure of descriptive ambition, typically Mattei. Like a lot of his work it can feel a bit like film-by-algorithm, an irrational, feverish pastiche of recognizable yet alienated cinematic plunder that is all the more remarkable for its entirely human origin. That it exists at all is a testament to our ingenuity, like the moon landing or algebra, but instead it’s a movie about a sad dad who blows up stock footage of a shark with an underwater grenade pistol. Print it in gold and shoot it into fucking space. Our concerned galactic neighbors deserve to know.
Sad dad blows up much more than sharks here, of course. Though he briefly dabbles in hand-to-hand combat and traditional gunplay, Bob Ross predominantly paints in grenades – rocket propelled grenades, pin grenades… are there others? I’m no expert of the form, but if they exist then i’m sure he was painting with those as well. Road block? Grenade. Village taken over by hostile Russian assets? Grenade. Stuck at an outdoor lunch table with suspicious folks who are all wearing the same boots? Just trick one of them into opening a coconut with a machete, because you rigged the table with, what else? A grenade. Person, place or thing? If it’s a noun it gets a fucking grenade. Bob Ross will have his happy little clouds. I’m not complaining.
Action is one thing, but man, Double Target has heart as well. Sort of. I guess. Mattei and his usual co-conspirators (Clyde Anderson né Claudio Fragasso, Troll 2, and an uncredited Rossella Drudi) peddle a family drama that’s a little bit Commando and a little bit The Emerald Forest, only awkward and weird and full of close-ups that read like Ikea instructions. Ross is reunited with his boy in the early goings, but surprise! The kid hates him. I mean really hates him. Like, conspires with Bo Svenson and a platoon of Russians to capture and execute his father hates him. Harsh, man. The boy finally breaks after Svenson casts him in his way-off-Broadway production of The Deer Hunter, and soon he’s backstabbing bad-guy guards with a smile and calling Ross ‘Dad’. Phew. The kid’s alright.
Like a lot of Mattei’s work Double Target hangs on by the skin of its teeth, and only just at that. It would take a semester or two of masters level film seminars to cover all of its mismatched angles and discordant stock footage inserts, but I’m not here to drag the film. That stuff was structural by this point in the man’s career, key evidence in the theory of Vincent Dawn: auteur. Any critical dogging Double Target could inspire would be at least thirty-five years beyond relevant anyway. Besides, this is a picture where Miles O’Keeffe leaps from the roof of a three story building to escape a fistfight with VCP loyalists, tucks a roll on the sidewalk, and is fine, ya know? You can wonder if it’s good or bad all you want, but the movie doesn’t give a shit. It’s got places to be, irresponsible helicopter stunts to perform, and heaps of dubiously constructed private property to atomize.
Oh, and Donald Pleasance’s silly character name? It’s Blaster. Senator Blaster.
For fuck’s sake.
