A very odd tail for a tiger
Liam O’Leary is a managing director at a business he owns and runs. He has everything in the world; he has a beautiful wife, a beautiful mistress, a son that hates him and more money than God. When O’Leary comes face-to-face with himself though, all that he took for granted gets snatched away from him. So O’Leary must find away to get his life back from this doppleganger before it’s too late.
I’m a huge Brendan Gleeson fan. His work has always amused and intrigued me (for some odd reason). His performance as Liam O’Leary and his doppleganger was impressive. He seemed to give just as much effort in this small time film as he does with everything, which makes it that much more enjoyable. His character, Liam, is interesting. He’s a rough businessman who cares only for himself. I haven’t seen a character who has played the ‘selfish’ role as smoothly as Gleeson does. Hopefully it’s not life imitating art, but however he pulled it off, he did it well. With that said, Gleeson is a big reason why you want to see this film.
Shifting gears a bit, the story works right to the point where the doppleganger takes over Liam’s life. The mystery of if Liam is seeing things or not is built quite tastefully and solidly. You truly don’t know if he’s going crazy or not, but you’ll be willing to take the ride. When it’s revealed that he’s not seeing things and that this ‘other’ man is real you then start questioning the logic of the set-up. If this guy is real how did he know where Liam was going to be the previous four to five times they met. Even better, if he’s real how come no one else can see him until the middle of the film? There are plenty of chances for this man to be discovered. What’s even more alarming here is that when Liam tries to catch him the bastard somehow gets away. This next comment I don’t mean with disrespect of Gleeson, but it’s not like Gleeson is young and particularly athletic. Certainly people will be able to see him before he gets away. For example, when Liam sees the man outside of his ‘gated’ houses’ window, there is plenty of time for him to catch him or to point out where he is to his family before this stranger runs away (and climbs the gate).
Outside of the aesthetics, the story stretches itself to the point where you get the message, but don’t agree with how it’s conveyed. What I mean by this is that the overall theme is that you shouldn’t take things for granted because you never know when it’s going to go away. Having a twin show up and steal your life is amazingly far fetched. What’s even worse is that at the end you completely forgive a man (who is your brother) for stealing your life, sleeping with your wife and causing your child to try to kill himself. I’m not quite sure how they forgive/forget in Europe, but that certainly would mean an ass kicking here in the states. The climb of the story, where the peak of the story appears, just seems to be so far into left field that it doesn’t quite make itself into anything coherent.
With that said, it doesn’t mean that the movie isn’t somewhat intriguing or entertaining. You’ll have some fun with this and you’ll get that ‘suspense/thriller’ feel from it. You’ll want the mystery to be uncovered; you’ll feel for Gleeson and his situation; that redeems the film slightly.