This is my/Susan’s first blog post in an effort to write film reviews! I expect these first efforts to be relatively crude ones, but hope to develop my attention to detail while watching films, refine my note taking skills, and through a writing catharsis, express my views and sentiments on my film-watching experiences.
I randomly picked, “Duplicity” as my first film critique. Maybe it wasn’t SO random. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen were the stars that grabbed my attention. I expected it would be a good film since I LIKE Julia, and well, Clive is hot, or maybe just his British accent makes him such…nonetheless.
The main characters in this film, Claire and Ray, were corporate security agents that were also spies/ double agents/ traitors to their employers. It was confusing to decipher who was on whose corporate team, but the movie had the action packed tension that was exciting to witness. The thrill did indeed speed up one’s heart rate. Naturally, some sexual tension was sketched in as was some role playing as Claire and Ray flirted and carried on an affair over several months while trying to steal inventions and corporate secrets, with the goal of catching the “big one” to sell to the highest bidder so that they could leave behind a world of deception and retire to a couples’ paradise, all the while undermining each others’ clandestine maneuvers.
The scenes vary from Dubai, to NYC, to Miami, to Cleveland, to Dunwoody, Ga., to Zurich, and San Diego. Acting skills from the duo were not that expressive, although I did think Julia pulled off the disinterested witch act, pretty well at times. (I’m hoping to pick up that skill). I can see how that made her character appealing, but even I was feeling like this older couple was too old to think about in terms of having sex. I just didn’t want to have to “go there.” Not only that, but, the ending was WAY too predictable. It didn’t have a “feel good ending,” nor was it ironic enough to be amusing. It simply fizzled out.
I was pleased to see Paul Giamatti (loved him in “Sideways”) in a new role as he played the obsessive CEO of Ekracrom, but Tom Wilkinson had billing over him, as the corporate competitor, even though this role was much smaller than Paul’s. It was an unfair billing.
I’m so sorry! This is not a film I’d recommend to other people unless you are a diehard fan of these actors. It gets two thumbs down from me. NEXT!
filmzoo 