From today's Oregonian....
"Duplicity" is perfectly titled: There isn't a second of this smart, twisty, grown-up thriller in which someone isn't lying, cheating or stealing, often from someone they claim to love.
The story concerns two ex-spooks (Clive Owen, Julia Roberts) working in corporate espionage. Their clients: a pair of feuding New York CEOs (Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti) trying to pilfer and/or hide a top-secret new product. The MacGuffin hardly matters: Writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") is more interested in playing with your head by withholding information. He starts the film with Owen and Roberts' first meeting, leaps ahead five years and fills in the missing time with slick, globe-trotting flashbacks that slowly reveal the particulars of a trust-challenged courtship and at least one long con.
Owen and Roberts -- both looking even cooler and thinner than usual -- re-stir their chemistry from 2004's "Closer." They're sharp movie stars, and they provide the sugar that helps Gilroy's narrative long con go down. The writer/director's technique can feel like complication for complication's sake, but stick with the story and the dramatic rewards are real -- or at least the punchline's pretty clever.
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B; 125 minutes; rated PG-13 for language and some sexual content.
'Duplicity' (The Oregonian, Friday, March 20, 2009)
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