Duplicity is a clever movie. It is also well written and has a great cast. Two former spies attempt to pull off a daring con and steal $40 million from their employers. Unlike the really good heist movies, such as the Sting and the Italian Job you don't really care very much about these characters. They seem arrogant and full of themselves. You have to like the thieves for these films to work their magic. The film is about corporate spying in the pharmaceutical industry which isn't a subject which normally sets the pulse racing. Heist films are implausible so it helps if they are also fun, but the story was too serious and the ending too downbeat.
Julia Roberts plays Claire Stenwick a corporate spy working for a pharmaceutical company called Burkett & Randle. Clive Owen plays Ray Koval, a spy working for a rival company. Both Stenwick and Koval know each other from their days at the CIA and MI6. Their job is to protect the products of their firms from industrial espionage. Both Stenwick and Koval will lie, cheat and steal to obtain an advantage. This doesn't make them particularly likable. When they find an opportunity to steal from their bosses and become extremely rich they plan an elaborate con. Julia Roberts is starting to look like someone's mother and seemed a little old for this preposterous nonsense. The film is OK, but I expected more.
Julia Roberts plays Claire Stenwick a corporate spy working for a pharmaceutical company called Burkett & Randle. Clive Owen plays Ray Koval, a spy working for a rival company. Both Stenwick and Koval know each other from their days at the CIA and MI6. Their job is to protect the products of their firms from industrial espionage. Both Stenwick and Koval will lie, cheat and steal to obtain an advantage. This doesn't make them particularly likable. When they find an opportunity to steal from their bosses and become extremely rich they plan an elaborate con. Julia Roberts is starting to look like someone's mother and seemed a little old for this preposterous nonsense. The film is OK, but I expected more.