Movie 2: Duplicity

Okay, I’m gonna cheat and copy the blurb from Flixster. Here’s how they describe it:

CIA officer Claire Stenwick and MI6 agent Ray Koval have left the world of government intelligence to cash in on the highly profitable cold war raging between two rival multinational corporations. Their mission? Secure the formula for a product that will bring a fortune to the company that patents it first. For their employers--industry titan Howard Tully and buccaneer CEO Dick Garsik--nothing is out of bounds. But as the stakes rise, the mystery deepens and the tactics get dirtier, the trickiest secret for Claire and Ray is their growing attraction. And as they each try to stay one double-cross ahead, two career loners find their schemes endangered by the only thing they can't cheat their way out of: love.

Yeah, so anyway. It’s kind of a half assed Ocean’s Eleven style heist set in the world of corporate espionage. Full of twists, turns, double crosses, you get the idea. And it’s no where near as smart as it thinks it is. There’s plot gaps that I found a bit annoying and I have trouble getting excited about the business world at the best of times.

It does have its moments though. The odd laugh here and there, some decent performances, it’s not a terrible way to spend 2 hours of your life. But there are better ways. A couple of episodes of Burn Notice for example. I’ve never been a huge Julia Roberts fan but thankfully in this she isn’t supposed to be some amazingly beautiful woman that men swoon over so I could buy her in the role. Her characters repeated testing of Clive Owen’s characters loyalty and trustworthiness is annoying though and would cause me to run for the hills. And Clive Owen is Clive Owen as always. Paul Giamatti never sucks, and he continues that run of not sucking in a relatively small roll here.

So yes it’s kinda clever, it’s relatively entertaining, but nowt special.

Next up: Igor