Gemini Man Should’ve Checked His Horoscope

The making of The Gemini Man is a far more interesting tale than the dumpster fire that is the finished product. First conceived by screenwriter Darren Lemke in 1997 and originally sold to Walt Disney Pictures, with Tony Scott directing, the script went through development limbo.At certain points, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Micheal Douglass, Mel Gibson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, Pierce Brosnan, Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington (to name only just a few) were attached to play the main character, Henry Brogan and his clone “Jr.” The screenplay went through rewrites by Billy Ray, Andrew Niccol, David Benioff, Brian Helgeland, Jonathan Hensleigh and Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson.

Finally Skydance Media bought the film rights from Disney, got Jerry Bruckheimer to produce, Ang Lee to direct and signed Will Smith in the lead. The long journey the film took to arrive at its maddening mediocrity is all the more frustrating in that there are signs that debates over cloning were, at the very least, attempted but ultimately buried under another tedious spy vs spy tale with a twist that turns out to be less than impressive. The “de-aging” of Smith is groundbreaking technology but the story is not worthy of this and is more a cynical set-up for a franchise than the cinematic film that might have been. In fact, Robert De Niro passed on the Gemini Man and wound up making the much better The Irishman where the de-aging serves a better story.

This story involves super sniper Henry Brogan (Smith) working as an assassin for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Ang Lee offers us an elaborate assassination in the opening where Brogan, about to fire upon his mark sitting in a bullet train coming down the tracks, is warned a little girl has approached the mark. Hesitating until the girl is safely out of the shot, he miraculously kills the man only shooting him in his neck instead of the intended head shot. This miss sends Brogan to a decision to finally retire. While settling into his retirement, Brogan meets Dani Zakerewski played by a wasted Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who rents him a boat.

Brogan takes his boat to his longtime friend Jack’s yacht where Jack soon tells him that the assasination we saw at the opening was of an innocent man. The investigation that follows leads to Brogan learning that the DIA had indeed set him up to kill an innocent man, also discovering that Dani is likely a DIA agent sent to monitor his movements. When Director of the DIA learns of Brogan’s investigation and discoveries she hatches a plan to kill him and all involved with him. Clay Varris, the head of some shadowy super secret black op wetworks argues with Lassiter over who is best to get the job done.

Lassiter insists it is her mess to clean up and sends assassins to Brogan’s home but the retired super sniper is smarter than the average assassin and easily evades the killer agents while attempting to warn his spotter in the opening (E.J. Bonilla), but calls too late and soon Jack and his wife are killed by assassins. Brogan rushes to Dani’s apartment to warn her about the impending hit, but Dani is a super spy too so she is able to handle the other spies, who are apparently not super spies, handily.

Any dialogue concerning the likelihood of a clone with an entirely different upbringing from the original it is copied from is merely alluded to, if even that. The best the nature vs nurture debate gets in this tedious story is from the maniacal mad scientist sounding Varris who blurts out exposition laughably disguised as philosophical debate. Varris is just speechifying his evil plan like comic book villains do.

The nature vs nurture debate has been ongoing since the Elizabethan times. Varris seems to hold the Lockean view of tabula rasa regarding this nature vs nurture debate. That people are born with blank slate minds and it is environmental factors that influence who they become. Benioff, Ray and Lemke, on the other hand seem to want to argue that personality traits and even moral and ethical attributes are innate. This would have been a fascinating debate to explore and could have easily been explored within the narrative of an action thriller.

One of the major problems with The Gemini Man is that the screenwriters have opted to make Brogan an ethical and moral assassin. Even if Brogan works for a governmental agency employing him to assassinate people, it is no wonder, ethically and morally speaking, that this agency is black ops wet-works. They have to fly under the radar in order to avoid the scrutiny that ethics requires and the consideration that these black op wet works as some sort of unspecified defense. Brogan only retires (as a device to how his strong moral compass) because he almost killed an innocent person.

When Brogan discovers that he did in fact kill an innocent person this actions are supposed to further solidify his strong morality and impeccable ethics. This is to contrast against his clone who appears to be an Ubermenschian assassin free from the shackles of ethics and morality. Without ever examining the ethical and moral dilemma of being a paid assassin, and by presenting Brogan as a man with undeniable ethics and morality instead of one struggling to be ethical and moral, the filmmakers have reduced their nature vs nurture debate to sophistry and silly sophistry at that.