Good Lord. Here’s an indie crime movie that seems a must for any Bad Movie night, offering a mix of ludicrous characters, terrible acting and hilarious fight scenes. But all this adds up to make a fairly entertaining effort from director Gary Sturgis.

Miguel A Nunez Jr is Nate ‘Hitman’ Collins, who’s name ought to ring alarm bells with the authorities, especially as he seems to be very easy to hire (at one point some random guy hires him to kill his cheating wife in one of the many superfluous sub-plots). Collins in fact sub-contracts most of his work to a trio of ex-prostitutes – Dixie (Noelle Perris), Angel (Avnit Gordon) and man-hating Jazzy (Tamara Mitchell), making this a bit like Charlie’s Angels, if Charlie was a hired killer and the Angels were murderous skanks.

After winning $3 million (!) in a poker game with Mexican Mafia boss Carlos (Emilio Roso playing one of many racial stereotypes in the film), Collins sends his girls to get the money, only for them to be captured by Carlos and convinced that it is, in fact, he who is owed the money. In the world of hired killers, it seems that while cold-blooded murder is fine, welching on a bet is frowned on and lying is the worst thing you could do, and so the girls head out to deal with their former boss.

There are plenty of chuckles to be had here – I defy anyone not to laugh out loud at the spectacularly inept kung fu fight that takes place at one point, as well as the forced dialogue that spells out what is happening for the benefit of more simple-minded viewers and the cast stumbling over their lines. You might also be gob-smacked by the random sub-plots that go nowhere, the piss-poor sound recording and - your first clue that this will be ridiculous – the opening shooting, where the audible shots are neither synced with nor the same number as muzzle flashes.

But all this makes what would’ve otherwise been a pretty dismal effort surprisingly entertaining. Moments of head-scratching lunacy combine with Birdemic-level shoddiness to make this a lot more fun than it ought to be. The fact that everyone apart from Nunez seems to be taking it very seriously just makes it seem all the better.

While I can’t, in all honesty, recommend this, I will say that should it come your way, you’ll probably get quick a kick out of it. Whether that is the sort of kick that the filmmakers intended is another question entirely, but there’s plenty of fun to be had from Double Crossed if you approach it in the right frame of mind.

DAVID FLINT

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