Duplicity
Corporations, who are nations onto themselves, have spy networks and espionage tactics that even the CIA would be envious of. Tony Gilroy hinted as much with the dirty corporate dealings of Michael Clayton, and now goes right back to behind-the-board room dirty tricks with Duplicity. Never mind that Duplicity is being marketed as a Julia Roberts-Clive Owen love-hate spy caper.
The Duplicity of the title is being fought on a personal and professional level. Professionally, there is a major corporate war between Dick Garsik's Equikrom and Howard Tully's Burkett & Randle. Personally, the two ex-spies looking to take advantage are ex-CIA agent Claire Stenwick, and ex-MI6 man Ray Koval. Though their affair started when Claire drugged Ray after having sex in Dubai, the two seem ready to pull off the perfect con, especially when Burkett & Randle is set to debut a revolutionary new product. With Ray running recon for Equikrom, and Claire as an Equikrom mole inside B&R;, the race is on to get this miracle product first and sell it for big bucks. Assuming a little thing like mistrust doesn't get in the way - personally and professionally.
Tony Gilroy doesn't depart far with Duplicity, after the deceit and murder, both in law and big business, that he created in Michael Clayton. Gilroy tries to combine the formula of a corporate thriller, with a jaunty spy game between bickering lovers. Aside from the romance angle, spy movies and corporate spy movies seem one and the same, which is the whole point in Duplicity. But Gilroy often seems more at home with the corporate angle than the spy lovers part of the game.
Gilroy gets some of his best material in Duplicity from corporate spy antics - as well as the comical fact that all this is being done between hair care companies. Spying and dirty tricks aren't limited to banks, military companies, or other traditional evil movie corporations, which is a novel approach. Even a pizza company is in on this whole racket at one point. Duplicity has the ideas and trickery that should make it more exceptional than it is, but Gilroy stumbles a bit along the way.
Gilroy has the screenwriting capabilities to make this kind of snappy film. With Roberts and Owen, who already tore into each other in Closer, he has the right pairing to make it work. However, Duplicity is often more mechanical than fun in its approach and tone. The constant flashbacks to Claire and Ray's planning comes across as an odd combination of Lost's flashback structure and 24's split screens. The audience is meant to feel that something wicked and deliciously nasty is going on, but that wicked feeling never comes across. Gilroy's approach makes Duplicity appear to have a snooze-like tone at times, even though it really shouldn't be boring.
Once the cons and trickery is revealed at the end, one can see where Gilroy is going with Duplicity. He has a great idea in practice of taking on his usual corporate enemies, and subverting the traditional spy genre all at once. For a lot of the way, particularly at the end, it does work. Yet Gilroy's ideas and approach sound good on paper, but are hit and miss in practice during the movie itself. Duplicity becomes a movie that is easy to admire, while falling a bit short in creating the black comic, deliciously nasty tone that it aims for.
Here, having a sense of humor to go along with his gravitas does wonders for Owen, as he actually seems to be enjoying himself with Gilroy's banter. Roberts is able to match Owen's word play, but it is a little harder to buy her as a professional spy. Like Duplicity itself, Roberts has the routine and banter of the genre down pat, and yet often have a harder time being convincing than they should. Roberts and Owen are certainly the main attractions, yet hrough little fault of their own, their relationship often struggles to get off the ground beyond the word play.
On the corporate side, Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti are the main combatants. The two professional scene stealers have a show stopping slow motion battle during the opening credits, then go on to do their usual routines. Wilkinson has his typical silver tongued menace - and a familiarity with Gilroy's monologues - while Giamatti has his usual neurotic approach. Carrie Preston, best known from True Blood and from being Lost star Michael Emerson's wife, has the most laugh out loud pair of scenes as a B&R; mark seduced by Owen.
Duplicity has all the tools needed to pull off the perfect con. It has the right screenwriter and director, the right pairing, the right ideas, and often the right kind of satire. But along the way, Gilroy becomes more focused in conning the audiences than in letting them have fun with the con. Once the final cons are revealed, we see how the genres and story are being subverted, yet the impact is less than it should be. Luckily, Duplicity does have the right tools to make it an often worthwhile film. Unluckily for the film, we can see clearly how much more it could have been, and how it sometimes fails to get there.