Duplicity

Watching Duplicity, you can practically picture writer-director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) grinning and maybe even chuckling a little to himself as he entered each twist and double cross into his script. We the audience find ourselves smiling a lot too. The movie constantly toys with us, but in a good way. It's clever, and it keeps on building, but knows when to stop. We often don't know who to trust, or who's betraying who, but part of the fun is figuring it all out.

The movie puts Julia Roberts and Clive Owen into the lead roles of Claire and Ray. When they first meet in Dubai on the 4th of July, the year is 2003, and both are government spies for different agencies. There's obvious chemistry between the two, but there's also a lot of mistrust with each other. Ray at least has a good reason not to trust Claire. When they spend the night together that same night, she drugs him and steals his top secret documents. They meet each other again in different parts of the world over the years, and although they are obviously in love, there's always that mistrust. That fear that the other is conning them in some way. Could they ever truly be happy together? We hope they can be, because Roberts and Owen have a playful and wonderful banter with each other. It's very different from their previous teaming in 2004's Closer. They're having fun toying with each other, and we get the sense that the biggest danger would be for one of them to let their guard down.

The central plot concerns Claire and Ray in the present day, working for rival big businesses. He is an industrial espionage expert working for a company called Equikrom, while she is the director of security for rival corporation Burkett & Randall. There's talk that Burkett is set to unveil a new product that will revolutionize the industry, although it is still top secret to many of its employees. The CEO of Equikrom (Paul Giamatti) wants the plans, and sends Ray and a small team to infiltrate the rival headquarters. Everything is not what it seems, of course. Claire is actually a "mole"within Equikrom, and Ray is her handler. There are even more secrets and revelations beyond that will not be revealed, but I will say I enjoyed being wrong for once about where a movie was taking me. Besides, it's a lot of fun to see Roberts and Owen going at each other with the sharp dialogue they've been given, which seems to be a combination of respect, romance, and distrust.

Duplicity is a spy caper set in the world of big business, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Considering how close guarded industry secrets are, it makes a lot of sense to create a story built around people who specialize in stealing secrets within the business. Sure, the stakes may not be as high as say in your usual spy or James Bond thriller, but it is no less engaging thanks to Gilroy's ability to keep things moving and keep his audience guessing as to who is conning who, and who is being conned. The movie uses an out of sequence style in an attempt to throw us off, with random flashbacks placed throughout, but the story is not as difficult to figure out as one might think. This is not a bad thing here. It fits the somewhat lighthearted mood of the story, and there are some wonderful pieces of comic dialogue.

There's actually a lot of little things that make Duplicity a satisfying movie. Yes, there's the playful and sexy banter between the two leads, but there are also a lot small touches, like wonderful supporting performances from Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson as the two feuding CEOs at the middle of it all, and who aren't afraid to break out into full-contact brawls if they should have chance to cross paths with each other. The movie also has a lot of fun with a sequence where Ray goes undercover and seduces a trusting travel agent who works within the rival corporation for information. The payoff scene where Claire must listen to the account of the night the two spent together is one of the highlights of the film. More than anything, though, the movie is just a lot of fun to watch. While the movie is designed around deceiving the audience, we never once feel cheated.

Some movies try too hard to be clever. Duplicity finds the right level and sticks with it. It also finds the right level of humor, suspense, and intrigue to keep us guessing. I found myself admiring the skill of Gilroy's screenplay to hold all these ideas together, and the skill of the performances to bring them to life. If you're expecting a simple story you can follow with no problems from Point A to Point B, you might be disappointed. If you're expecting a little more and a little bit of fun to go with it, you won't be.

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