Duplicity *** (2009, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti) – Classic Movie Review 4620

After appearing together in 2004’s Closer, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are reunited for writer-director Tony Gilroy’s entertaining 2009 romantic caper thriller as a pair of former spies for MI6 and the CIA.

They fell in love back in those days, while working together, but now they are company spies working for rival companies engaged in a bitter corporate war, with Ray working for MI6 and Claire for the CIA. They have a cunning scheme to pull off – the ultimate con trick on each other’s bosses. But can they actually trust each other?

Slick, clever and twisty but a shade too gimmicky and unduly over-complicated with its confusing multiple flashbacks, this capable cat-and-mouse caper is largely carried along by the charismatic appeal of the stars and the scene-stealing acting skills of star support players Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti as the rival soap tycoons.

Owen (aged 45) and Roberts (42) look and seem a tad tired but their performances crackle brightly enough. In a film very like Brad Pitt and Anjelina Jolie’s Mr and Mrs Smith, they may not be Brad and Anjelina, yet they are a useful team. Is there a slight lack of sexual spark between them? Maybe so. But just imagine the smouldering tension with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint on North by Northwest form performing this script back in 1959!

Full of posh talk and sometimes baffling plotting, the script by director Tony Gilroy (double Oscar nominee for Michael Clayton) is good but misses brilliance. Never actually exciting, the film seems overlong and unfocused. It needs to get a grip! But it does keep motoring along and make you keep watching to see if you can work it all out.

Almost certainly due to its lack of action and gun play, it turned out to be a cinema box-office disappointment – it took only $40 million in the US and £2.7 million in the UK after costing $60 million to make. But it is classy and polished enough to do well on the home screen.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4620

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