Pirate Journalism

“Duplicity” is the movie equivalent of the little engine that could.

Not Even a Bad Imitation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

That is if the little engine tried to be a whole bunch of different things but kept failing.

“Duplicity” tries to be “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” but is nowhere near as sexy or exciting.

“Duplicity” tries to be “Oceans 11″ but is nowhere near as inventive.

“Duplicity” tries to be “Wall Street” but is nowhere near as greedy.

“Duplicity” features Clive Owen and Julia Roberts as government agents turned corporate spies and would-be thieves.

Ray (Owen) is a British agent who meets CIA operative Claire (Roberts) at an embassy party, where she seduces him, steals a classified packet from him. When they meet again, they develop a plan to retire and live the “James Bond” lifestyle. That plans involves quitting their government jobs and going to work in the corporate sector, and pretending not to know each other until they can pull off the big score.

The big score comes when rival soap companies vie to out do each other before an all important annual shareholders movie. One CEO (Tom Wilkinson) has a new product he plans to announce, while the other (Paul Giamatti) intends to steal that product before he has to go before his company’s investors.

That is about as exciting as it gets. In fact, the most exciting and interesting part of the film is the opening slow-motion nerd-fight between the CEOs in the beginning of the film. After that, it goes downhill from there.

Owen and Roberts have no chemistry on screen, and fail miserably in comparison the previous spy couple of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Even if  “Duplicity” isn’t the same kind of spy movie as “Mr. And Mrs. Smith,” the comparison is too easily made, and Owen and Roberts are nowhere as sexy as Pitt and Jolie.

Furthermore, Roberts is nearly unattractive, both in her character and appearance. It is hard to believe this was the same women that wowed us in “Pretty Women.”

The movie also tries to be a “double-cross” film where each side plans and plots and has back up plans, like in the Ocean’s 11 films. What you end up with is one guy being paranoid about being double crossed for the entire film, and he is not even right about it in the end.

It also seems like it wants to make a statement about corporate greed, like “Wall Street” did back in the 80s, but, well, it was just too dull to have any sharp edges to poke with.