Review of Duplicity (2009) by James R — 04 May 2010

My reaction to Duplicity can be summed up as follows: "wait...what?" I think I got everything that happened in the plot and why, but there was literally so MUCH that happened in quick (though not chronological) succession that I lost track of the film's driving purpose halfway in.

I like a good spy double-cross flick as much as the next guy, but there's a point of saturation at which the flashbacks, side-switches, and abrupt changes in action and attitude are so frequent that they stop being clever and start getting confusing. After that point, twists that would otherwise have been mind-blowing end up merely weary, and the viewer starts to question whether the herky-jerky double-cross gimmicks were included to make the film work or to disguise how badly it doesn't work. And while Ocean's Eleven, Mission: Impossible, Chaos, Vantage Point, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and many others have lived right at that point and been very successful in doing so, Duplicity pushed past it within its first half hour, never looked back, and suffered accordingly.

On a positive note, this film does include two of the best character actors working today: Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti. You don't get to see much of either of them, but their presence alone makes the film worth seeing once. It's a pity that Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, Duplicity's actual stars, don't command that kind of watchability--or at least, that they don't do it here.