Duplicity | ★★★★★

Ann and I caught this Julia Roberts and Clive Owen quazi spy thriller a few weeks ago and both thought it to be an enjoyable flick but frankly a bit disappointing. Here are a few excerpts from the Christianity Today review:

• A pair of corporate spies with a steamy history conspire to pull off the ultimate con in this smart, breathlessly entertaining cinematic musing on the fragility of trust.
• At any given time, we have no idea what's going on, but rather than becoming frustrated, we hunker down and pay that much more attention, intent on reconstructing the jigsaw puzzle before all the playful twists are revealed. However, as the title suggests, deceit is the name of this intoxicating game, and we soon realize that success is nearly impossible when the pieces never sit still.
• The romantic comedy is as much the crux of Duplicity as it is its ultimate means of misdirection, employed in such a way that we cannot help but think of earlier films like To Catch a Thief and The Thomas Crown Affair, even as Gilroy reappropriates their sophisticated repartee and transforms it into something darker and hence more modern.

The CT reviewer obviously liked it better than I did. On the plus side I really liked the corporate CEO characters played well by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson. I thought that on screen chemistry between Roberts and Owen was okay but sub-par when compared with that of Roberts and Gere in Pretty Woman. If you have not seen it yet I suggest that you wait for it to come out on video. On a scale of 10 I give this movie ★★★★★