Duplicity

Snappy, razor-sharp dialogue delivered with crackling efficiency by screen legends like Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Claudette Colbert was at the heart of such brilliant romantic comedy classics as Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, and It Happened One Night. Those movies were celebrations of the written word and showcases for the power of sparkling chemistry between two lead actors. Throughout the years, various attempts have been made to rekindle that early cinematic magic, but none of those attempts have been as vacuous and pitifully contrived as writer-director Tony Gilroy's excruciating and asinine Duplicity.

As evidenced by Gilroy's last movie and feature directorial debut, the overrated and underwhelming Michael Clayton, Gilroy is a filmmaker who puts plot before character. The result is a gnarled and knotted collection of narrative nonsense that wastes the majority of screen time trying to convince the audience of its cleverness, rather than giving us believable characters worthy of our attention. The people in Gilroy's world are merely a means to an end, empty vessels employed to put uninspired plot twists into motion. This awkward, backwards approach to storytelling leaves movies like Michael Clayton and especially Duplicity feeling pointless and uninteresting.

The cast required to bring Gilroy's pitiful excuses for characters to life is promising on the surface. But as soon as leads Julia Roberts and Clive Owen appear on screen, the incredible dearth of chemistry between the pair and their inability to make the indulgent dialogue feel like anything more than a writer's lame attempt to sound smart puts the movie on a rickety track right from the start. Instead of being reminded of the cozy chemistry displayed by past greats like Hepburn and Grant, I was left to ponder how dull Roberts' and Owen's careers have become.

It's probably time that Julia Roberts considers retirement. The superstar actor reached the apex of her career nearly a decade ago when she won an Oscar for her somewhat unexpected (but certainly not Oscar-worthy) performance in Erin Brockovich. Since then, both her workload and her ability to charm audiences has gone downhill. Now, it has crashed directly into the ground and gone up in flames. There is nothing commanding about her presence anymore and her performance is as flat as the screen it is being projected upon.

In the case of Clive Owen, perhaps he should start reading the script before he signs on to make a movie. For an actor who once offered such meaty promise, his career has transformed into a series of disappointments. Owen wears dishevelled far better than he wears dapper (which makes his other new performance in The International a lot more interesting to watch than the silliness at work in this movie), so he should be seeking out more roles like the one he played in Children of Men, instead of trying to poorly imitate Cary Grant.

Roberts and Owen play a CIA agent and an MI6 agent, respectively, who decide to turn their backs on their careers in the name of love and a huge payday. Their plan to become filthy rich pits them against two corporate CEOs who harbour personal vendettas against each other. The CEOs are played by talented actors Paul Giammati and Tom Wilkinson, both of whom lazily trudge through their roles. Giammati has been great in past movies such as American Splendour and Sideways, but when he plays self-absorbed twits as he does here, he tends to go so far over the top that his performance feels like an ill-timed joke. Wilkinson, on the other hand, is always worth watching, but in Duplicity, Gilroy hands him one of his most simplistic and forgettable roles to date.

Gilroy's toxic style infects every aspect of Duplicity, ensuring that the entire viewing experience is as frustrating as it is painfully boring. The cast is a train wreck right from the start and Gilroy's script is pretentious, self-absorbed garbage, but the movie's problems do not end there. Cinematographer Robert Elswit churns out some of his muddiest work to date, making him a complete enigma in my eyes. Elswit won an Oscar a short while ago for his work on Paul Thomas Anderson's masterwork There Will Be Blood and the win was entirely deserving.

But for all of Elswit's great work (in other Anderson movies such as Boogie Nights and Magnolia, as well as the black-and-white beauty Good Night, and Good Luck), he has spent equal time lending his talents to such laughably awful movies as Impostor and Gigli. Elswit previously collaborated with Gilroy on Michael Clayton, which at least boasted some mildly intriguing imagery. Unfortunately, his photography in Duplicity is as uninspired as the characters, each scene completely devoid of any semblance of visual excitement.

Instead of crafting an engaging homage to romantic comedy classics and old-fashioned movie star charisma, Gilroy has created a vacuum that swallows up all of the talent in the room. Duplicity is a useless, wandering movie without a shred of originality or imagination. Gilroy has only called the shots as director and writer on two movies so far and I'm already convinced that his voice is not worth listening to. When a storyteller deems plot twists more important than character development, the result is a dramatically feeble mess. Duplicity is a bad joke with a lame punch line. So early in his directorial career, it's already time for Tony Gilroy to reinvent himself.