Duplicity

When it comes to spy thrillers, there's a divide among moviegoers: some prefer the action-packed, guns-a-blazin', brainless movie (which we see a lot of, probably because this is the kind most people prefer, hence more box office money), and then you have the usually smarter, dialogue-based movie, in which the twists and turns come more as a result of characters bluffing and double-bluffing one another, and the weapons used are words rather than guns. I can easily deal with watching the former type of film as long as it doesn't insult my brain, but my preference decisively falls towards the latter choice, which is why I heartily welcome something as fun and complex as Duplicity.

That's not to say that there aren't any bad movies in the realm of the cerebral film. For instance, both Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen were fairly mediocre; neither was saved by its great starpower, and neither could match the awesomely crisp sense of fun that we got from the first film in that franchise. The reason why they weren't good is because they were much more complicated than they needed to be and the way the scenes were edited was annoying as all heck. Duplicity is getting similar criticism, but I don't feel it's warranted. I didn't find it hard to follow at all; it's simply the type of movie that rewards people who pay attention (which, then again, anyone with a short attention span shouldn't be watching it in the first place). The flashback sequences don't really confound the plot or distract from the action; instead, they slowly reveal a good deal of background on our two main characters, and the editors have incorporated them well into the rest of the picture.

Duplicity is one of those rare experiences: a movie that is over 2 hours long that held my attention for its entire running time. The banter here is just too good. While one can complain that the movie does have plot holes, and that Tom Wilkinson isn't used nearly as well as he was in Tony Gilroy's last film (Michael Clayton), there's no denying that there's much entertainment to be found here for those who prefer this type of film. And if this isn't your cup of tea, then just go watch 12 Rounds, I guess. Oh, and...


*SPOILER WARNING*


I have to admit I really liked the twist ending. Sure, I sort of predicted that Wilkinson's character wasn't as clueless as he seemed about what was going on, because of the fact that we didn't see as much of him in private talks with others as we saw of his corporate-arch rival, but overall, I thought the denouement was unexpected, especially because the film seemed to be setting things up so that one of the two main characters would pull the rug from underneath the other at the end. Instead, they were both played jointly, making for a great final zoom-out scene, with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts looking thoroughly perplexed, yet fascinated, which is pretty much the way many will probably feel about the film as a whole.

6/10