“Everything I need is always with me. Satellite dishes, five laptops, six cellphones, and bio-terror.”

Justin’s rating: Well, this movie put me off tuna for life

Justin’s review: It was inevitable. You simply cannot run a cult movie review site that has a penchant for dunking on bad movies and not end up in the disturbing cinematic dimension of Neil Breen. I’ve been putting this off as long as possible — mostly for mental health reasons — but it’s time. My head can take another hit for you all.

So if you haven’t heard of the legend that is Neil Breen, let me fill you in. Breen is a creepy and intense former realtor-turned-filmmaker who’s written, directed, and starred in some of the absolute worst movies ever made. His stuff is breathtakingly terrible, marked by piles of nonsense, stock footage, and green screens. To make matters more bizarre, he keeps iron-clad control over his works and has figured out that bad movie lovers want to watch them, so he charges waaaaaay too much money to buy a DVD (and good luck finding them on streaming).

I’m going to wade right into his oeuvre with his first film, 2005’s Double Down, a project that made me wish I was watching Nickelodeon’s Double Dare instead.

Breen plays Aaron, your modest dude who happens to be a computer wiz (who can hack into any government computer or satellite), a fighter pilot with “many” medals, a millionaire, and a covert agent/mercenary who works for the highest bidder. Oh, he’s a cyborg because of COURSE he is, has an invisibility shield that kills, has an eagle for an animal spirit, and has invented half the systems the world uses — the “secret systems!”

Truly, the hero we all wanted AND deserved.*

As part of a way-too-lengthy voiceover,** Aaron tells us that he’s been hired to shut down the Las Vegas strip for two months for some other country… or maybe his own?*** No biggie, just two months. I’m sure no one will notice or intervene.

Besides, they can’t intervene! Apparently, Aaron’s planted weapons of mass destruction in several cities as a way to blackmail the government off his back — but he also gives millions to charities, so that evens things out. Think kindly of Aaron’s generous spirit while you’re coughing your lungs out in a cloud of sarin gas.

What you have to understand about Neil Breen’s movies is that his character is always the ultimate Mary Sue, the most powerful and capable person who’s ever lived. He doesn’t deal in half-measures or character flaws. You name it, this guy can do it, all while looking like someone you’d give a wide berth if spotted at a Walmart.

So all of this extreme power is used to protect people but also kill millions and terrorize billions more. He works for our country but sometimes other countries depending on the scene. Nothing makes sense, because Neil Breen has etched away reality with his deranged screenwriting.

“Disjointed” is the best accusation to levy at Double Down. No scene is connected to what’s come before or after. Stock footage is deployed in bulk, often for no discernible purpose. Topics and ideas come up again and again, as if we didn’t hear them the first time. People in the same scene are rarely filmed together. Most of this film, stock footage aside, is Aaron doing random things in a desert while having flashbacks to his murdered fiancé (who’s a ghost? and a skeleton that he totes around in his trunk?). This is more or less a one-person play where the actor is free-wheeling it.

Double Down seems to want to make the viewer’s head explode with this parade of lethargic nonsense. Aaron finds a hermit who dies and gives him the power to be one with an eagle. His mom and dad come back from the dead for a few minutes. His dead girlfriend leaves bloody messages on his car door. His trunk is packed full of e-waste and empty tuna cans. He has brunch with other spies. He sort-of cures a girl’s brain cancer with a magic pebble. He kills a newlywed couple with poison strawberry champagne by accident. And 10% of this movie is simply watching Niel Breen climb up and down rocks.

A big part of the fascination with Neil Breen is that he’s downright impossible to figure out. Was he deliberately trying to make a bad movie? Is he playing all this extremely straight, thinking that he’s producing an entertaining masterpiece? Is he simply an insane dude with a camera and a lifetime subscription to Adobe Stock? Is he the Banksy of the film industry? Good luck answering any of that, because there is no explanation.

Neil Breen simply is.

Is this the funniest thing I’ve ever seen? The stupidest? The absolute worst? A stream of consciousness from a man I now consider my arch-enemy? Yes and no to all of the above.

*Yet for all of his boasting, the movie shows Aaron trying and failing to eat tuna from a can while driving without spilling it all over his lap.

**The voiceover goes on for the entire flick. I am not joking. Maybe he was being considerate for the visually impaired.

***I’m fairly sure that Breen chose Las Vegas because of the abundance of stock footage. Also, he was a realtor there.

Intermission!

• “I’ve always lived between this world… and the other.”
• Looks like he’s having a good time skipping around on the Vasquez Rocks
• Hacking requires wearing latex gloves. In the desert.
• Wait, he’s sitting on a rock with two laptops, multiple flip phones, a gun, and a syringe
• He works as a double agent, but no worries — he gives away his millions to orphanages and hurricane evacuees
• Aaron also kills white collar criminals in his spare time: “The fields are full of their bodies.” But he’s “just a simple person.”
• He’s a horribly messy tuna eater. Maybe don’t eat while you drive, Aaron.
• He just casually takes a giant satellite dish out of his trunk
• Aaron is very proud of owning FIVE laptops
• Some wars will never end no matter what anyone says, thinks, or does
• OK this voiceover has been going on for 10 MINUTES and he won’t stop bragging about his accomplishments. Now he’s up to invisibility shields that kill anyone who gets close.
• None of these computers are ever powered on
• “I support our troops, but there’s no way for them to win a modern war.”
• “Where are you? Where am I? You’re me.”
• Fish-killing poisons. Well done, sir.
• That is the saddest tent I’ve ever seen.
• Love is spinning someone around and around and around while occasionally becoming a child
• Random nude proposal in a pool isn’t weird, why do you ask? PUT ON CLOTHES.
• When your fiance is murdered by an assassin’s bullet, cry out once and then let her float away, face-down, in a pool while you float next to her and give the audience a look at your private parts.
• He’s got a whole bunch of license plates, that Neil Breen
• He doesn’t want to meet in a covert agency’s office because of all the skeletons in there
• Mysterious desert hermit gets a choral soundtrack
• He’s now one with the birds?
• “I’m so alone… but never lonely.”
• “Mom! Is there life after death?”
• Is this a spy brunch? With a grandma and a little girl?
• The announcement of a girl who got brain cancer is best reacted with “Oh no I’m so sorry” and then a magic pebble to the head that cures her
• His sleeping habits fascinate me. Tent on rock looks uncomfy. Much more so is sleeping on the dirt beside his car. And then sometimes he’s in the backseat with a blanket. Why not do the backseat all the time?
• That’s like four pounds of anthrax leaking from a bag
• When your newly wed husband keels over and dies from poison, you as a wife should simply look a little confused
• They committed suicide by doing… what? Smearing a dab of ketchup on their foreheads?
• “They can never be prepared for me no matter how hard they try.”
• He can boost cars with a flip phone
• The fakest super goatee ever worn
• Crowds in Vegas are more interested in having a good time than seeing the TERROR
• I don’t think you have to stand that close together when you’re all pointing assault rifles at each other
• He’s got so many questions. He’s so confused.
• Aaron and his girlfriend exchange the most chaste of all kisses. She (rightfully) does not look like she wants to be kissed by him.
• The best place to display your military medals is on a sleeveless denim shirt
• All of the empty tuna cans. That’s deep symbolism.
• Just wait until you see Aaron trying to hug all of America while professing his love for it
• Nothing like toting around a duffel skeleton to seem like a normal dude
• Hacking always involves juggling multiple laptops
• Conference calls involves holding three flip phones at the same time
• “Go to Code Orange!”
• The actress looks genuinely terrified at being carried down a hill by Neil Breen
• Dead girlfriends ride in the back of the car