Duplicity

Last night I watched Duplicity on DVD and it was a strange experience. This movie reminded me of Oceans 11 and the Italian job because it had to do with spying, stealing, and conning. It also had a similar sound track which gave the movie a sassy feeling. The story is about two people played by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts who work for two large rival Proctor and Gamble type of companies. These rival companies constantly compete with each other and employ more spies than the CIA and FBI combined. The movie was interesting and had some funny parts but was also confusing as crap.

It usually bothers me when people complain about being confused during a movie. I have little patience for people who can't follow a plot or can't handle a flashback or don't have the patience to wait for all the pieces to come together at the end of a movie, or don't like long run on sentences, but this was different. This was confusing on steroids. I have to admit it was not entirely the movies fault. First of all, I was starting to nod off and was in and out of consciousness for some of the scenes. Netflix also sent me a scratched disk that kept skipping back to prior scenes and many of the scenes have identical dialogue so I couldn't tell if I was watching the same scene or experiencing deja vu. On top of that, I was watching a movie that had more flashbacks than any movie I have ever seen. Not a good combination.

I'm not a huge Julia Roberts fan, but she was okay in this movie despite being so cold and calculated the entire movie. I'm still not sure if I buy the chemistry between the two stars, but I thought it was kind of funny how they were so mistrusting and constantly tormenting each other. Paul Giamati was great in his role. He seems to steal the show in every movie I have seen him in (Big Fat Liar included). Seriously, he rocks.

Despite the abundance of confusion I had to endure while watching this movie, I still give it 6.6 stars. I would tell you to wait for it to come to video, but that would be like me telling you to get ready for Y2K. By the way, I know I am no Roger Ebert, but you gotta love the Movie Guy because despite his critiquing shortcomings, his heart is in the right place.