Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 176
Fresh: 113 | Rotten: 63
Duplicity is well-crafted, smart, and often funny, but it's mostly more cerebral than visceral and features far too many plot twists.
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 11
Duplicity is well-crafted, smart, and often funny, but it's mostly more cerebral than visceral and features far too many plot twists.
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Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 290,705
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Closer co-stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen reunite for Oscar-nominated director Tony Gilroy's drama tracing the illicit love affair between two spies-turned-corporate operatives. The Cold War has thawed, and for CIA agents seeking to make an easy mint, the real money is in multinational corporations. CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and Ray Koval (Owen) are both racing to secure the formula for a product that will bring untold wealth to the company that lands the patent first as the
Mar 20, 2009 Wide
Aug 25, 2009
$40.6M
Universal Pictures
All Critics (177) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (117) | Rotten (64) | DVD (16)
When it comes to spy thrillers, Tony Gilroy knows the game.
With Duplicity [Gilroy is] developing a nice body of work.
Gilroy keeps it all moving at a steady, stylish pace.
Duplicity is an enormously enjoyable hybrid, a romantic comedy set at the center of a caper movie.
It's a passably amusing brainteaser.
For all the glam and swank, the film is essentially a bright, shiny, empty puzzle. The puzzlemaking by writer-director Tony Gilroy is clever but most frequently an end in itself.
Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are reunited for the first time since Closer, and they're a messed up couple again. But this time they're secret agents, which is cooler.
Roberts and Owen work well as leads in a grown-up thriller, but these aren't their best performances.
When it comes to sorting out where we stand with someone, we're all spies. Tony Gilroy realizes that romance done right involves invigorating risk, and "Duplicity" offers a bracing, beguiling shell game of behavior to complement the light shenanigans.
It might be saying something that I preferred to see [Giamatti and Wilkinson] in action than the two actual leads of the film.
Duplicity features the sort of story screenwriters dream of crafting in order to show off their aptitude.
The results are mistimed and misshapen, like Lubitsch after a vasectomy
... a sleek, witty, sexy thriller with movie stars being movie stars: looking great, flaunting their charisma and playing roles within roles.
The film's greatest pleasure is in the snappy dialogue Gilroy crafts for the capable duo of Roberts and Owen... [Blu-ray]
Duplicity teams masters of mutual deceit in sizzling make up sex for spies, Julia squirming her way through one night stand pretend amnesia with toe rings, and a different kind of screwing of flabby corporate cutthroats in designer suits.
You gotta be flawless to tell a story out of sequence. This ain't no Memento. God, Julia is getting old.
It's not unfair to say that Duplicity is Michael Clayton on laughing gas. What's remarkable is that both movies pretty much work.
A stylish, engaging and complex thriller.
[Tony] Gilroy may have taken his time honing his voice as a filmmaker, but there's little doubt that he's got it down to a science at this point.
Duplicity is like sitting in a two-hour lecture from a college professor who reads straight from the text and never makes eye contact. Do you know there is an audience here?
This movie wasn't firing on all cylinders despite some of them being great cylinders.
This con thriller reunites Clive Owen and Julia Roberts after their great chemistry in "Closer" and they're immediately back on track. Both are playing former spies now working for multinational corporations. Whether they are allies or opponents, love or hate each other remains uncertain for the longest time. Fact is,
March 22, 2009Super Reviewer
No one is more surprised than me that I actually enjoyed this one. I guess I am not a real girl because I tend to not like Julia Roberts's movies at all (Pretty Woman? Ack! Notting Hill? Pass me a bucket). But this - this is actually a decent role for her! She plays a spy who gets involved with another spy - its kind
March 30, 2009Super Reviewer
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