Duplicity

Is this a fun, flirty romantic comedy? A farce? A serious drama about espionage? When writer/director Tony Gilroy figures it out, will someone let me know?

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts star as spies Ray and Claire. One night, several years ago, while she worked for the CIA and he was employed by MI-6, they shared a romantic evening together. Then, she drugged him and stole some top secret material he was carrying. He was quite angry about it all.

Now, they find themselves out of their respective agencies and working for Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti) – a corporate titan obsessed with defeating a rival company led by Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson). Garsik has brought in a top notch crew of spies to discover what super secret product is being developed by Tully’s company. While this reunites Ray and Claire, we have to wonder how happy each one is about the opportunity.

Are they working together?

Separately?

Who can be trusted?

What is the product?

Duplicity is caught in a very strange place between trying to be a David Mamet-like, hardboiled caper movie complete with double crosses, triple crosses and quadruple crosses, while it also wants it to be cute and funny and light hearted like a romantic comedy. The two mix together like ketchup and applesauce.

It’s hard for the audience to pay attention to all of these twists and turns as they get jerked back and forth between the two tones. The music is fun and cool. Some moments are cute and romantic, but the battle between the two corporate titans is best when farcical instead of mean and nasty. Much the same can be said for the danger Ray and Claire face. It’s too serious.

Owen and Roberts do what they can, but their chemistry is all thrown off by this mixed tone. Gilroy wants the audience to wonder what is really going on between them, but it becomes so complicated, you have trouble remembering each incident and fact. Then, we get one twist too many, which makes the movie drag on even longer than it already feels.

Duplicity can be accused of the same by making us believe it was going to be more fun than it is.

Duplicity is rated PG-13 for language and some sexual content.