Like a magician performing one too many tricks, "The Double" overplays its deception while spinning a mildly diverting yarn.

With nothing resembling a character worth rooting for, the fact that the plot of The Double just gets sillier and sillier makes it one of the most annoying films of the year.

Questionable motives and unbelievable decisions are relatively small potatoes compared with the Sputnik-size plotholes.

Character motivations, sequences of events, and that thing called plausibility are all a bit offensively slapdash.