Wait a second… Steve has a blog?

Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy (wrote Bourne movies, Devil’s Advocate, wrote and directed Michael Clayton, and most importantly, his first writing credit is actually the hockey/figure skating crossover, The Cutting Edge)

Starring Clive Owen and Julia Roberts

Plot Synopsis: ” A pair of corporate spies who share a steamy past hook up to pull off the ultimate con job on their respective bosses.”

I think Clive Owen is pretty awesome, and Julia Roberts is pretty obnoxious, so I guess I had a 50-50 shot at liking this movie. I guess its fitting that I feel pretty ambiguously about the film in general. What I can say is that it is ambitious in a lot of ways. What Gilroy is attempting to do here is make an lightly comedic, romantic, spy thriller with a classical Hollywood, adult-oriented tone. Though I wouldn’t deem it an unqualified success, there are some things that make the movie worth watching:

-Some of the supporting performances are good, especially Paul Giamatti and Tom McCarthy (better known as the weasely reporter from the last season of The Wire). -A few very well paced scenes of suspense -Often gives a pretty interesting view into corporate espionage (though this is something that I suspect Steven Soderberg’s The Informant will do in a much more interesting way)

Overall, for a movie that was trying to be this quirky, smart, and appealing, Duplicity is pretty dull. I guess for me, the movie’s main problem is that the romance aspect of the movie does not work (and not just because of Julia Roberts). In my opinion, the movie spends so much time attempting to throw the audience’s expectations off that they are never really given anything to hang onto in terms of emotional investment. And I’m not saying the film is sloppily put together or anything. I can see what he’s trying to do, and I can understand that by withholding the motivations of the two main characters, Gilroy is trying to demonstrate the potential “trust” issues that two spies in a romantic relationship would have, but I’m pretty sure this is what prevents the film from being completely emotionally satisfying as well.

Then again, I can understand that he’s making this film for the savvy filmgoer. Nowadays, since everything has been done, it’s not enough for a genre film to be a well told story. Now everything has to be super-complicated or people get upset for some reason. Unfortunately this film may have veered too far into complicated category. Not too complicated to understand, but just not the most entertaining viewing experience. I like Tony Gilroy usually, and I think that this is a smart film in a lot of ways, but overall it just doesn’t work for me.

Meh.