Duplicity Review

Duplicity distills corporate espionage, super secret agents,and romance down to something as exciting as a discussion of the differences between lotion and crème through the cunning use of bad acting, tedious dialogue and sleepy visuals.

Ray Koval (Clive Owen) and Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) were spies for the British and American governments, respectively. They abandon their government spy games for the seedy world of corporate surveillance. They take the chance of a lifetime by taking dueling CEO's Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti) for a financial ride. A strong but supporting role, Champagne has a mountainous amount of screen time playing itself.

There is a serious case of "actor playing self" in Duplicity. Champagne appears, bubbly and expensive, at every opportunity to celebrate or lamentation. Clive Owen plays the handsome and rugged, but not well put together tough-guy. Tom Wilkinson, the stiff upper lipped British guy. Paul Giamatti plays a loud mouthed, over egoed, windbag. Julia Roberts plays the beautiful, intelligent woman in love with the rugged and handsome, but not well put together tough-guy. The actors in Duplicity had as much problem finding their character as genius would have with a four piece puzzle.

Julia Roberts can't even act herself well. Just because you have red hair does not mean you are a carrot, nor does it mean you are in anyway related to a rabbit but she does her best to channel the Cadbury Bunny in Duplicity. It is most kindly described as an extended facial seizure. Her face twitches so often, a well placed drink would make James Bond a martini, just the way he likes it. The only blessing of this unrelenting cheek and lip shivering is that distracts from everything else on screen or in the ear.

There is nothing interesting or repulsive about the way Duplicity is shot. It is remarkable only in its mediocrity. Scenes rich with opportunities for heart-pounding excitement instead employ copy machines, blue prints, and printers. Let's not forget how often Champagne is on screen. It seems we cannot go more than five minutes without seeing yet another bottle of champagne, two glasses and another tedious reason not to drink it.

The fact that bubbly booze is a main character is a testament to the dime store quality writing in Duplicity. The dialogue is difficult to listen to at all stages of the film. The ending is totally foreseeable to anyone above age 15 with half a brain. The characters trip over their stupidity but have been able to function in high level jobs, requiring higher cognitive function than the average burger-flipper. There was no shortage of lines that made me want to commit suicide by eating my own shoe; lines I will not share with my readers because I can't bear to transmit these bastardizations of language; these memes of brain cell death.

Duplicity is a perfect example what happens when a writer and director are the same person and substandard at both, left with no oversight. Tony Gilroy, the writer and director of Duplicity, was left to his vices and smeared his addiction to his laziness all over the audience. It would be reasonable to expect even minimal quality from actors of the caliber employed in Duplicity but instead, poor writing and direction encouraged an overall decline in quality of all aspects of this movie.

Duplicity should be renamed Dull-plicity. Tony Gilroy, I demand a refund of my time.