The Spies that Bind

In "Duplicity", Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play Claire Stenwick and Ray Koval, former government agents (CIA and MI5, respectively) now employed in the private sector. Competing spies with a romantic past, they now find themselves working counter-intelligence for two rival multinational corporations, vying for a secret formula. It's a cutthroat, ruthless business, but one that could make a couple of enterprising former agents a good deal of cash — if they know how to play it. But who's playing whom, really?

Borrowing heavily — from the multi-screen transitions to the musical score — from "Ocean's 11", writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") attempts to craft a stylish romance wrapped in a heist film. Setting up the heist, Gilroy takes great pains to show us the world of corporate espionage is an enterprise more perilous than the governmental spy game and with seemingly more at stake. A slow-motion fistfight on a rainy tarmac between rival CEOs Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti) and Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) demonstrates the bloodthirsty ire between the two. Their awkward, middle-aged rampaging and missed blows is perhaps the film's only truly inspired moment.

The majority of "Duplicity" is an exercise in tedium. Countless red herrings and twists are thrown at the audience to obscure the final act, but the whole heist business is just a device to frustrate the romantic relationship between Claire and Ray — people who, one might add, are just as distasteful and duplicitous (hence the title) as their employers.

For actors known for their charisma and charm, it's amazing to see how Roberts and Owen manage to suck the life out of every scene they're in together. The complete opposite of screen chemistry, Roberts' sparkle is subdued under a blank, brittle stoicism while Owen's sex appeal is doused with ice water. Watching them go through the motions in endless, ridiculous flashbacks is no less than torturous. It's a painful death by degrees.

Compounding the agony is a convoluted plot with double- and triple-dealings so meaninglessly ornate it requires all of one's concentration just to keep up. The effort is exhausting, with too little payoff in the end. There are no characters or causes to root for, no satisfying resolution, no clever a-ha moment. It's a high-wire act only three feet above the ground, landing with a disappointing thud. The joke, it seems, is on the audience.