ViewGuide

Created Jul 30, 2009 08:32PM PST • Edited Mar 01, 2013 07:43AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   This confusing movie dupes not just its backstabbing characters. Viewers too may get get lost in the to-and-fro time jumping. Admittedly, I saw Duplicity on the small screen of a coach cabin, so the sound wasn’t great nor the legibility of the title cards very good. (“3 Days Earlier”, “4 Days Later”, etc.) Still the plot payoff didn’t seem worth the effort, especially given the charisma and chemistry deficits of Julia Roberts – especially – and Clive Owen.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Julia Roberts plays cool crisply. As a pretty woman capable of driving men off their rockers however, she’s long since a poseur.

   Clive Owen does fine, albeit he’s hardly a Cary Grant-class charmer, which is what this movie could have used.

   Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti – great actors both – shine as rival CEOs consumed with executive megalomania.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    OK 2.5

    Writer-director Tony Gilroy utilizes title cards to establish hither and yon scene timing, a difficult device that fails here. Even more than with his Michael Clayton, he’s indulged his too-clever-by-half tendencies with this movie. Plus his dyspeptic view of business – while trendy on the Left side of town from whence he sprang – is a bit unhinged.

11. Direction OK 2.5

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals Good 3.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.6

    Insufficiently edgy for a grown up romantic-thriller.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Does the world work this way? No. MI6 agents don’t moonlight as corporate spies. Corporations don’t brazenly steal patentable concoctions, let alone announce them in advance of FDA approvals. Lefty Entertainment-Industrial Complex players like Tony Gilroy might imagine it to be so, but it ain’t.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0