Duplicity (2009): Don't Be "Duped" By Going To See This Turkey
Written: Mar 25 '09 (Updated Mar 26 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: It was a promise of possible goodness.
Cons: Pronises sometimes disappoint.
The Bottom Line: Glad to leave the theater.
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| Ed.Williamson's Full Review: Duplicity |
Duplicity is the worst movie I have seen so far in 2009. I didn't want it to be that way but it just turned out that way. It is just wrong on so many levels.
It was a waste of three competent starring actors- Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Paul Giamatti- and several supporting ones.
The plotline more or less goes like this. Two governmental spies semi-retire and go into the security business for two competing business corporations. Having once had a lovers' tryst, when they meet again they resume their sport-banging, and decide to cheat their respective companies and go into business together. All of this is supposed to play like romantic comedy, but it fizzles. End of story.
The story itself isn't funny. It is a pastiche of cliches which tax the patience. And it is further eroded by what was supposed to be a funny technique- blundering, disorganized flashbacks and flashforwards intermittantly slap-dashed through the film at a pace that makes your head spin and your stomach churn with nausea.
Julia Roberts, once a hugely bankable star, here looks insecure and up-tight, as if she knows that the script is a few bubbles off center, and she is grinding her teeth wondering how to play the scenes so that they still have a modicum of credibility. It's a shame to see her wasted this way. If you have ever seen her shine in her former roles with such freedom and flexibility you will immediately see the contrast.
Her chemistry with Owen is all a prefabricated sham. These people don't really like each other. They loathe who they are and they loathe each other and they say they love each other but the loathing cannot be hidden by their duplicity. There is no magic nor humor here, only wishful imitation of films that worked when it came to this genre of humor. And the audience isn't fooled.
Owen is out of his league here. An actor like Brad Pitt or Russell Crowe might have carried it off, but Owen has that deer-in-the-headlights on-screen shallowness that may have come from the lightweight script but still radiates more heat than light.
Paul Giamatti is another victim of a shallow script. Paul is one of the truly genius actors of our generation, and with a script with some depth and a director who knows how to maximize Paul's use of timing, Paul can make you fall out of your chair and roll onto the floor laughing. But here, Paul is just collecting a paycheck. With as little effort (required) as possible.
The "humorous" sight setups are predictable, contrived, and overdone. You can see them coming a mile away.
Actors like, say, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere might have made it work, even with the banal base script. Such actors probably still have a trace of that old Pretty-Woman-style magic and they might have conspired to breathe some life into the project. But here, this script ain't so pretty. It ain't givin'. The script just leaves us owin'.
Uno star/ *
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Funny Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Rough cut, missing major effects, music, etc.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot
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Epinions.com ID:
Ed.Williamson
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Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
Reviews written: 605
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Fight 'em till Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice!
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