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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Duplicity

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#1 of 1 Posted 3/17/09 11:22 PM

From harveykarten Posts 744 Last Nov-19
To All [Msg # 23771.1 ]

DUPLICITY

Universal Pictures
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+
Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Written By: Tony Gilroy
Cast: Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Paul Giamatti, Tom Wilkinson, Ulrich Thomsen, Thomas McCarthy
Screened at: AMC 84th Street, NYC, 3/17/09
Opens: March 20, 2009

As Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana” was in 2005; as David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” was in 2001; and as Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton” was in 2007, “Duplicity” is likely to be the most cerebral film of the year. But cerebral is not necessarily the same as intelligent. “Duplicity” unfortunately features considerable opacity, brought on by a sometimes arbitrary shift in time periods (“five years later,” “ten days earlier” and the like) and by a major twist at the conclusion that should serve as a resolution but leaves a deconstruction up in the air. Tony Gilroy is the obvious man to write and direct this picture. His “Michael Clayton” is about a lawyer who has a breakdown when he realizes that the chemical company he represents is the guilty party in a multi-billion dollar class action suit. Corporations, in Gilroy’s opinion, operate by the law of the jungle.

“Michael Clayton” might have been looked upon as interesting fiction when it appeared, but given the skullduggery by Ken Lay’s Enron corporation and most recently by AIG’s outrageous action in awarding bonuses to executives just after receiving a huge bailout from Uncle Sam, we already expect the worst from the suits who operate the Fortune 500 and perhaps (hopefully) are ready to embrace big government as the solution, not the problem.

Corporate skullduggery rages in “Duplicity,” mean-spirited actions that are tempered by a parallel romance between two spies who have difficulty trusting each other but who are probably in love. To avoid feeling vulnerable, each waits for the other to make the declaration. Julia Roberts as Claire Stenwick and Clive Owen as Ray Koval are the principals. Both have experience as spies, he for the British M16, she for the CIA. When they meet for the first time in Dubai, he comes on to her not realizing that she is the party more interested in seduction. After a roll in a hotel near the American Embassy, she drugs the agent and makes off with secret Egyptian codes which her government is most interested in.

While Ray has good reason not to trust Claire, when they meet five years later at New York’s Grand Central Station, they scheme to make big bucks for themselves in much the way that government higher-ups often do far better financially in private industry. Exploiting their government cloak-and-dagger experiences in the corporate sector, they arrange to spy for two pharmaceutical firms: he for Burkett & Randle, whose CEO is Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), she for Omnikrom, under the direction of Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti). They uncover a top secret, handwritten note indicating that Burkett & Randle are soon to announce a major new product that could mean hundreds of billions of dollars for the first company to garner the patent. The two need only to find out what this product is and, more important, its formula—the latter requiring only a single page of organic chemistry lines.

Among the plot developments, the most humorous involves a seduction of Burke & Randle exec Barbara Bofferd (Carrie Preston), gamed by Ray’s effecting a southern accent and claiming to be a pediatrician involved in helping the poor—which allows the clever spy to gain access to the offices of her company.

Romantic souls in the audience are likely to focus principally on the two mistrusting lovers while fans of “Michael Clayton” and the “Bourne” series will try to deconstruct the corporate manipulations involving double-agents and double-crosses. The resolution, such as it is, comes at the very end in the lobby of a luxurious hotel, the final scene of the drama taking place ten days before a speech given by Omnikron’s Dick Garsik to a rapturous crowd of stockholders. The movie opens on a slow-motion physical fight at an airport between the two pharmaceutical CEOs, an altercation that just might be metaphorical rather than actual.

Audience members are likely to figure things out at their own individual pace, but few can deny that the film excels in Kevin Thompson’s production design, all filmed with steady cameras by Robert Elswit. The players are seen in our increasingly smaller world in Dubai, Miami, Zurich, the Bahamas, London, Cleveland, New York and Rome. As for me, I’ll take “Michael Clayton” over this one any day of the week—a thoroughly entertaining tale of corporate sniping that does not depend on presumptuous time changes, but “Duplicity” awakens in me a desire for revenge against those avaricious AIG execs who take home huge bonuses despite the near failure of their company.

Rated PG-13. 125 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

Edited 3/18/09 by harveykarten

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Duplicity

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