Duplicity

A boring romantic heist flick

Few actors annoy me as much as Julia Roberts. I can’t stand her big wide cackling mouth with huge lips. She blasts out that same soul-piercing laugh in every movie. It drives me absolutely crazy. But in Duplicity, she’s not playing “that” Julia Roberts. No, it’s no fault of her own why I didn’t enjoy Duplicity. She’s bearable. It’s the plot, characters and script of the movie that kills it.

Duplicity stars Roberts and Clive Owen as two former international special agents. Roberts worked for the CIA and Owen for MI6. After a romantic encounter in Dubai ending with Roberts stealing Owen’s agency’s secret files and leaving him unconscience in a hotel room, Owen was left broken-hearted.

Now, five years later, their paths cross again – only now they’re both working as two competing corporate spies in New York City.

As the story unfolds, we’re given flashbacks of what took place in that five year period, what brought each of them to this point. Each flashback reveals another clue as to what’s going on and what’s to come. But therein lies the problem. The twists that occur are fairly predictable and uninteresting. Why? Because you don’t care at all about any of the characters.

Considering that the movie revolves around the relationship between these two characters, you never see enough of them together to think that they belong together. The chemistry between them is absent. For that reason, you never care whether they end up together. All you care about it heist that they’re scheming between the two corporations. And in the end, you never even really feel satisfied with the way that part of the story ended. It’s like watching a romantic comedy adaptation Ocean’s 12 where there’s only two players. It’s long and boring, the ending is riddled with holes like swiss cheese, and you absolutely don’t care what happens to anyone.

While Duplicity may have a decent run in theaters, I guarantee you it’s a film that wont be remembered. Even if it charms you for a few hours after seeing it, you’ll forget about the next day. You’ll never even think of seeing it again. I usually try to base explain in my reviews which type of audience is going to enjoy each film, but I can’t think of a single type of movie-going audience that would fall in love with Duplicity. It’s simply mediocre.

Photo credit: Universal Pictures