MOVIES: Duplicity (Tony Gilroy, 2009)

I am a sucker for movies about double-crosses, con games, and back-stabbing who-do-you-trust mind games, so Duplicity was right up my alley. It's certainly not the best movie of its type, but it's a breezy bit of entertainment.

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts star as Ray and Claire, former government spies (she's ex-CIA; he's ex-MI6) who decide to team up and pull a con of their own in order to make enough money to retire together; their primary obstacle is that despite their love, neither of them can quite get past their professional paranoia to completely trust the other.

The nature of the con is the weakest part of the movie; Ray and Claire get themselves hired by the corporate security departments of competing conglomerates, figuring that they can somehow steal the hot new product which the companies are fighting to bring to market. The scam never really does make sense, and the moment at the end when it's revealed that Character X has really been pulling the strings all along is particularly implausible here. (That's always the hardest part of the story to get past the audience, because the pieces never quite fall into place as neatly as they would have had to.)

The movie's other significant problem is that Julia Roberts is slightly miscast. The thing that makes her such a huge movie star is her rare combination of glamour and accessibility; despite the looks and the charisma, we somehow feel that we know her. We trust Julia Roberts, which makes her not quite the right choice for a movie where no one trusts anyone. It's not a movie-killing flaw, because what Duplicity is mostly about is the fun of watching two glamorous movie stars toss off snappy banter against a series of fabulous international backdrops, and on that level, Roberts is more than adequate. But if you imagine the role played by someone whose sexuality has an edge of danger, a hint of menace (which Owen does bring to his role) -- say, Catherine Zeta-Jones -- you get an idea of how the movie could have been just that much sharper and crisper.

Still, the movie's strengths outweigh its small flaws. Gilroy's writing is clever; there's a nice bit where the same passage of dialogue recurs at least four or five times, and we figure out more about what's really happening each time we hear it. The supporting cast is very good; RIck Worthy and Kathleen Chalfant make strong impressions as members of Owen's corporate security team, Carrie Preston gives a charming, amusing performance as a corporate travel agent who gets caught up in Owen's scheming, and there's typically solid work from Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson as the dueling corporate bosses. The international locations look marvelous (Robert Elswit is the cinematographer), and James Newton Howard contributes a score with a lively retro feel.

Granted, I'm predisposed to like this kind of story, and those who aren't fans of such things may enjoy the movie less than I did, but I thought it was a smooth-moving, slick diversion.