Mr. Murder (1998)

Starring:
Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Baldwin
Thomas Haden Church

Special Appearance:
James Coburn

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I'm sure you've all played the icebreaker game known as Name Your Favorite Baldwin, but for me there's simply no debating it. After his breakout roles in The Usual Suspects and Bio-Dome, Stephen Baldwin has been held higher in my esteem than his more critically acclaimed brothers. Sometimes I wish all the Baldwins were Stephen Baldwins. Thus explains the appeal of the made-for-TV thriller Mr. Murder, which features Stephen Baldwin in a dual role. Veteran TV movie director Dick Lowry (Y2K, Atomic Train, Project ALF) handles this adaptation of a Dean Koontz novel.

The opening credits fade into one of the more dank high school swimming pools in movie history. Drew Oslett Jr., the son of Oslett Technologies CEO Drew Oslett Sr., watches a young man swim some laps. Drew is played by Thomas Haden Church, or as he will be forever known - Sideways or no Sideways - Lowell from Wings. Lowell establishes himself as evil by standing in the shadows while wearing a trenchcoat. The young swimmer might be a future Olympian, but instead he is destined to become the victim of a murder designed to look like a freak shower-electrocution accident.

The accident is staged to get a blood sample from the kid in order to clone an army of super soldiers. Why they didn't just jab him in the ass unexpectedly with a needle isn't clear, since it worked so well in Innerspace. The added layer of complexity proves problematic when on the same night, famed horror fiction writer Marty Stillwater (Stephen Baldwin, of course) finds himself in the hospital for a blood test on the same night. The two vials are mixed up during an all too common intern-juggling-test-tubes-in-a-vain-attempt-to-impress-another-intern incident, and the wrong man is cloned. One would expect that the mix-up would become very obvious, but Lowell attributes the different appearance of the prototype, named Alfie, to the extensive genetic engineering that Alfie underwent to become a more efficient killing machine.

These changes include the following: increased endurance, increased strength, decreased time to reach maturity, docile obedience, near-instantaneous healing, and psychic abilities. Wanting to maintain an aura of scientific plausibility, Koontz supplies explanations for the more questionable genetic upgrades. The near-instantaneous healing requires a large input of food to supply the energy to regenerate damaged tissue, and does not work for head injuries. The psychic powers derive from genes believed to be associated with ESP, presumably obtained by jabbing John Edward in the ass with a needle. The John Edward gene is shown to be a success at Alfie's birth. At the exact moment the cord is cut, Stephen doubles over, feeling intense pain right in the old umbilical cord.

In order to maintain complete control over the genetically engineered supersoldier, Lowell subjects Alfie to a rigorously controlled environment and constant psychological conditioning. Lowell is referred to as "Father," Alfie is told to "be at peace" when he becomes agitated, confused, squeamish, regretful, or exhibits any sort of emotion really. The result is that Alfie is a completely amoral killing machine that frightens everybody involved in the project. Drew Oslett Sr. (James Coburn) is so disturbed by the project that he orders it shut down. The casting of Mr. Coburn as a "special appearance" is a matter of some pride for the filmmakers, since he is a veteran of The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and In Like Flint in the 1960s, and more recently, Snow Dogs. The stature and experience that Mr. Coburn carries allows him to make a significant contribution to the film despite only appearing in about four scenes.

Lowell refuses to end the project, however, and sets up his own facilities complete with his own evil board of directors. After a handful of years, Alfie has reached full maturity and is carrying out assassinations against military strongmen around the world. In appearance Alfie is about thirtyish and is played by Stephen Baldwin in evil mode. The youth of his character, the lack of any social experience, and the constant psychological conditioning means that evil Stephen Baldwin speaks in the slow cadence of a simpleton. The conflict of good Stephen Baldwin against evil Stephen Baldwin is something like Michael McManus from Usual Suspects versus Doyle Johnson from Bio-Dome.

The showdown is set in motion thanks to evil Stephen Baldwin's ESP gene. It seems to be a receiver/transmitter, because both Stephen Baldwins get visions from each other's lives. Good Stephen Baldwin blacks out and sees flashes of Third World locales, and concludes that he is going insane due to a brain tumor. It is revealed that he is a hypochondriac, which sadly means that initially no one will believe him when he says that he is being pursued by his evil genetically enhanced clone. Evil Stephen Baldwin sees bits and pieces of good Stephen Baldwin's family life in a more controlled fashion, since he is the one with the ESP gene. He concludes that his lack of memories indicates that he has been kidnapped, brainwashed, and replaced with a look-alike. In a heroic rejection of his conditioning, evil Stephen Baldwin sets off to kill good Stephen Baldwin and "reclaim" his family. It's sort of like The Corsican Brothers except evil.

The quest is aided by good Stephen Baldwin's fame as a nutjob horror writer. In addition to the hypochondria, good Stephen Baldwin owns a couple dozen pairs of the same green shirt and same blue jeans and never wears anything else. His horror titles include "Deadly by Twilight" and "Taste for Death," so presumably people won't notice when his doppelganger shows up talking like a retard. I guess it's true: you are at your best when you write what you know.

Evil Stephen Baldwin finds a magazine article on him, kills some guy for his car after explaining politely in excruciating detail why he needs it, and drives to "his" California home. Along the way he finds the tracking device that Lowell implanted in the heel of his shoe. The shoe may seem like a poor choice of location on Lowell's part as opposed to, say, evil Stephen Baldwin's ass, but you must remember that Lowell is a huge Maxwell Smart fan.

We cut good Stephen Baldwin alone at home making lunch before his doctor's appointment. As evil Stephen Baldwin closes in distance, the psychic connection grows stronger, similar to electromagnetic radiation. Good Stephen Baldwin is frightened by a clear vision of evil Stephen Baldwin and leaves immediately for the doctor without even touching his lunch.

Moments later evil Stephen Baldwin breaks into the house, changes into the standard good Stephen Baldwin uniform, and proving that nothing is sacred in this chilling tale, eats half of the man's sandwich. Evil Stephen Baldwin wanders into the study and tries to write. Being retarded, he can't string together two sentences even after trying the usual cures for writer's block: a beer and putting his fist through the monitor. He looks down to the gashes on his hand just in time to watch them quickly seal up. He's pretty much Wolverine without claws.

Good Stephen Baldwin becomes very confused when he gets home. He doesn't remember eating the sandwich, he doesn't remember busting up the monitor and getting blood everywhere, and he certainly doesn't remember having an identical twin in the house pointing a gun at him. After some quick thinking, good Stephen Baldwin turns on the stereo via remote and evil Stephen Baldwin turns around and starts shooting wildly at the speakers. Good Stephen Baldwin takes the initiative and bumrushes him. Then in a fight that covers every room in the house, good Stephen Baldwin defeats his genetically engineered trained assassin clone in hand to hand combat, knocking him over the second-floor railing onto a glass coffee table. Good Stephen Baldwin then violates the first rule of fighting a crazy lookalike, which is shoot him in the head repeatedly. Instead he walks away to call the cops and evil Stephen Baldwin scampers off.

Having lost five pints of blood, evil Stephen Baldwin needs to replenish the lost energy and materials. He does so at a local drive-thru, after explaining in excruciating detail to the customer in front of him how his body is engineered to operate. Meanwhile, the cops are suspicious of good Stephen Baldwin's account of the struggle, since they found all that blood but no body. They believe it is all a publicity stunt with fake blood, not realizing that science has created a clone that can replace five pints of blood by eating a plate of French fries. Furthermore, they only find one set of prints on the gun, which goes to show how good the cloning process is since twins with the same DNA don't even have the same fingerprints.

About this time news of the two or three people the evil Stephen Baldwin killed on route to California hits town, and as we now know, the fingerprints match good Stephen Baldwin perfectly. So the family goes on the run to good Stephen Baldwin's parent's isolated cabin in the woods. Evil Stephen Baldwin, in search of "his" parents, arrive at their house moments before good Stephen Baldwin leaves a message detailing where they're headed and which routes they are planning on taking just in case anyone overhearing may want to set up an ambush.

Lowell's evil board of directors finally realizes that their super soldier looks exactly like a world-famous author. They are able to determine that the family is en route to the isolated cabin because that's just what families do in this type of movie. Lowell enters full damage control mode, and sets off for the cabin to kill good Stephen Baldwin and his family then retrieve evil Stephen Baldwin for reconditioning and possibly a shock collar implant in his ass. When James Coburn, wracked with guilt, confesses to a senator (coincidentally also a member of the evil board), Lowell dispatches the Jump to Conclusions guy from Office Space (Richard Riehle) to assassinate him.

The FBI comes to the conclusion that good Stephen Baldwin has in fact gone insane and abducted his family to the isolated cabin, since their cases typically end up at isolated cabins. They organize a SWAT team to kill him and save the family. Harkening back to the second Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1960s, every character in the film not already dead is set on a collision course with horror and wackiness, and it warrants recognition for just how difficult it is to do both so well.

The only thing missing from the madcap chase finale is the mistaken identity. This is handled when the family stops in for gas halfway to the isolated cabin and good Stephen Baldwin visits the bathroom around back. Following his psychic link, evil Stephen Baldwin stops and tries to find him. Good Stephen Baldwin gets out of the bathroom and runs right into Lowell who coincidentally was also stopping for gas. Good Stephen Baldwin starts talking like a retard and convinces Lowell that he is in fact evil Stephen Baldwin, and they drive off together. Evil Stephen Baldwin walks around looking for good Stephen Baldwin and instead finds good Stephen Baldwin's daughter, who drags him back to the car.

The family notices something is wrong when evil Stephen Baldwin announces at dinner, "I'm hungry," and starts shoveling food into his mouth like a crazy person. Lowell notices something is wrong when good Stephen Baldwin forces him to crash the car, takes his gun, steals his Palm, and pistolwhips him down an embankment. His wife sneaks out of the cabin under cover of darkness with a shotgun and the kids. Good Stephen Baldwin comes up to the cabin at the same moment, but flashes his wedding ring and talks like a normal person to convince them. By now evil Stephen Baldwin has noticed the escape and grabs a handy rifle, which apparently has a really bad sight because the trained sniper misses good Stephen Baldwin with three shots at twenty yards. The family makes it into the SUV and drives off, but evil Stephen Baldwin shoots out the rear tire and they are unable to drive on a flat or it will void the lease. It is at this moment that Dean Koontz shows a great respect for movie convention by having good Stephen Baldwin yell, "We'll go hide out in the mill!"

After a long and tense game of hide and go seek in the mill, evil Stephen Baldwin finds the girls. Good Stephen Baldwin drops down on top of him from a handy walkway and the elder daughter picks up the gun. Having seen this type of situation in film before, she asks them a question only her dad would know. Good Stephen Baldwin sees that Lowell is lurking behind the girls, and figuring him for a quicker shot than his daughter, he answers incorrectly. When she says no, Lowell shoots evil Stephen Baldwin, mistakenly thinking he is good Stephen Baldwin. He then turns the gun on the girls to tidy up, but evil Stephen Baldwin in a dash of parental instinct rises up and pushes Lowell through the wall. Evil Stephen Baldwin follows through and joins him in the five-story drop, which happens to be enough to crack his head open; his Achilles' skull if you will. Good Stephen Baldwin and the kids look out over the edge just in time to see evil Stephen Baldwin die, and then slowly but surely evaporate into nothingness. That is some damn fine genetic engineering.

Good Stephen Baldwin is left with the Palm but doesn't know the password. He was able to see over Lowell's shoulder on the car ride up well enough to know that the password has six letters and starts with an F. And although he knows that Lowell had evil Stephen Baldwin call him "Father," he is not privy to the knowledge that the audience has about his Oedipal issues. Luckily, his six-year-old daughter is on hand to tell him the obvious answer, and he types in Father. This is why I implore all of my readers to choose alphanumeric passwords rather than words describing their deep-seated psychological problems.

So the family decides to hightail it to Mexico and transmit the information on the Palm to the world, clearing good Stephen Baldwin's name. Concerned about the SWAT members swarming over the mill, the eldest daughter begins whistling the family theme song, "King of the Road," in an inspiring if poorly timed gesture. And in order to appease the audience's worries that with the FBI looking for the family it might be hard to sneak across the border, we fade into the epilogue showing the four of them 18 months later on a boat off the coast of Australia listening to a radio report on the top secret cloning project.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.