I like to consider myself a smart guy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bragging, I’m just stating that I normally have the brain power to follow a movie’s story. So either I’m dumber than I think, or Duplicity is just a poorly written movie.
It’s pretty much about these two spies who used to have government jobs, but they want to make a bunch of money together, so they figure they can do that pretty easy by quitting their jobs and double (triple?) crossing some corporations. So the reason I had a hard time following this movie, is that both of these spies are pretty untrusting and suspicious of everything and everyone, and the movie tracks those feelings way too well.
It’s all over the place. Locations like, ten years ago, 10 days ago, 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 15 minutes earlier, and this week all show at nearly random times. The characters never look any different, younger or older, so you can’t tell that some flashbacks are flashbacks until you’re several minutes into them. When you finally adjust your train of thought to the notion that, “this is a flash back,” they don’t make a whole lot of sense.
All of this, I could forgive. I get a hint of this type of stuff in other movies, like the Ocean’s movies, and I liked those movies. However, unlike the Ocean’s movies, and this is the spoiler, the end of this movie finds the lead characters with nothing. They have nothing to show for their years of “being in-play,” their deep cover. It was all for naught. Well, thank you very much movie. Tonight, I wanted to come and get to know two people and watch them waste their lives with no reward. Thank you very much. Sooooooo fulfilling.
And on the side, Julia Roberts needs to stop working on her face. Well, she needed to stop years ago. It took me at least 30 minutes out of the beginning of the movie to contort my mental image of what lips on a woman should look like, before I could stand to look at the girl. I know doctors need to make money, even plastic surgeons, but at some point they have to say, “No, Mrs. Roberts. I cannot do what you request and still sleep with myself at night.” Even after than, there were several places throughout the movie where I just had to turn away and cringe. Definitely a bad casting job.
So, to sum it all up, bad flow, hard to follow, bad ending, bad casting. Save yourself some money.
