Legal Commentary

Review: Beldar & kids see "Duplicity"

By Beldar

"Twisty!"

That's the one-word verdict of my son Adam on the corporate espionage thriller, Duplicity, which he, my daughter Molly, and I saw early this afternoon. Molly and I not only joined in that verdict, but concurred with Adam's degree of substantial satisfaction in pronouncing it.

This is a slow time of year at the box office, and today was one of those days when we'd decided to go to the movies with no clear intention as to what we'd see. If we'd arrived an hour later, we might have instead seen 17 Again, despite Adam's objection that its male lead, Zac Efron, has a distractingly truncated first name.

But "Duplicity" dives immediately into a twisting and turning plot ? if you leave for five minutes mid-movie to get fresh popcorn, you'll pay a heavy price ? and although its trailers and advertising (warning: noisy website) certainly led one to expect double-crosses and surprises, it has an adequate combination of freshness and misdirection to avoid obvious clichés or predictable plot kinks.

I began convinced that Julia Roberts had been miscast as the female lead in this movie: She looked all of her 41 years, and perhaps a few more. I suspect, in fact, that the filmmakers deliberately avoided the flattering makeup, wardrobe, and lighting that might have knocked a few years off her apparent age, because her actual age better fit the character she was playing ? someone neither overly lush nor brittle, but of whom an unkind (and yes, sexist) westerner might still say, "That's a mare, not a filly, and she looked like she'd been rode hard and put up wet." Ms. Roberts is still a striking, sexy woman. But I don't think anyone would use the terms "girlish" or "wicked hot" to describe her in this movie ? in contrast to, for example, Charlize Theron in The Italian Job. And Ms. Roberts was less glamorous than, say, a comparably mature Rene Russo opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

Clive Owen I can take or leave, and I might have been more receptive to whatever on-screen chemistry he developed with Ms. Roberts if I hadn't already watched her and Rupert Everett's campy but sexless on-screen relationship in My Best Friend's Wedding three or four times on late-night cable/satellite channels. I'd seen, but almost forgotten, Mr. Owen's and Ms. Roberts' performances as romantic interests in 2004's Closer; but perhaps to the extent it was in my subconscious, that quirky film ended up diluting rather than intensifying their on-screen chemistry for purposes of this one. A British accent and a muscular and dark-haired chest make for interchangeable leading-men hunks these days ? all of them, as far as I can tell, living off the glorious, reflected, but fading sort of charm defined by Cary Grant and Sean Connery. In any event, Mr. Owen ended up being good enough, and occasionally drolly funny. And Ms. Roberts ended up being better than I expected, delivering a somewhat low-wattage but nevertheless persuasive performance.

The supporting cast, however, was simply terrific ? better than the leads, better than the directing, and better than the script. Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, as rival CEOs from "Equicrom" and "Burkett & Randle" (think Unilever and Procter & Gamble), very nearly stole the show from Mr. Owen and Ms. Roberts. Mr. Wilkinson's performance was as subdued and guileful as Mr. Giamatti's was spittle-flecked and trenchant, but both were entirely credible and compelling. Carrie Preston had a small part that she turned into pure gold, as did Kathleen Chalfant, but the whole cast shone ? and did so without the sort of "Oh, it's my turn now, and aren't I precious!" mugging that I found offputting in films like Ocean's Eleven and its sequels.

In the pantheon of twisty films, this one wasn't remotely as good as The Sting ? but then, if you only watch films that deservedly win Best Picture and six other Oscars (with nine total nominations), you're going to run out of entertainment pretty soon. My ultimate but simple test is whether I regret spending the money for the ticket after seeing a movie in the theaters ? and I don't regret the price I paid for me, Adam, and Molly to see "Duplicity." It gets a solid "thumbs up" from each of us.

Will you suffer if you wait for "Duplicity" to come out on cable/satellite? No, probably not; and in fact, I'll almost certainly watch it again, TiVo'd so I can replay my favorite scenes and really count the clues, when it does. Even after seeing this movie, you won't quite know the ultimate corporate secret ? the difference between creams and lotions ? but if you're in the mood to go out for a movie during this season of slim pickings, you could certainly do worse than this one.

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UPDATE (Sun Apr 19 @ 6:45pm): Mild spoilers follow, along with some real-world perspectives that are less flattering to this movie and to Hollywood in general:

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on April 19, 2009 (boomark / email).