Product Description

Oscar® winner Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star as two sexy spies-turned-corporate operatives in the midst of a clandestine love affair. When they find themselves on either side of an all-out corporate war, they'll put everything on the line to remain one double-cross ahead in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. From writer/director Tony Gilroy (seven-time Oscar®-nominated Michael Clayton) comes the film critics are raving about: “Roberts and Owen have sizzling chemistry in this instant classic.” (Lou Lumenick, New York Post)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1081 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2009-08-25
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
Julia Roberts and Clive Owen surprise and delight on multiple levels in Duplicity, a caper film that keeps the audience guessing if the tone is cheeky, seriously, or both in exactly the same scene. Owen smolders as the relaxed, craggy sexual beast he's become--effortlessly--and Roberts is surprisingly mature and tic-less. And their chemistry threatens to explode out of the beaker. On one level, Duplicity is a sparring romance, bringing to mind the no-holds-barred zingers between Cary Grant and Roz Russell in His Girl Friday. But the film has layers of action and suspense, as well as a neat spin on the spy business. Instead of hunting for, or protecting, confidential state nuclear secrets, as each character once did when they first met, now they are beholden to captains of industry and Madison Avenue--seeking secrets not of national security, but of formulas to the next great… moisturizer. Director Tony Gilroy, who wrote all the Bourne films and wrote and directed Michael Clayton is clearly carving out a snappy path for himself as a master of sleek, suspenseful, energetic films that nonetheless appeal to a mass audience. A special shoutout to the opening scene of a mano a mano fistfight on a tarmac between Armani-clad CEOs (one played by an especially memorable Paul Giamatti). "You on one side, me on the other," says Roberts' Claire at one point to Owen's Ray. "It's perfect." Perfect grownup entertainment. --A.T. Hurley

Stills from Duplicity (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Love Clive Owen But Not In This Film
I found this film very confusing. I realize it is an elaborate spy vs. spy in a corporate espionage matter. One spy is Julia Roberts and the other is Clive Owen. At first it seems like she is the one with the upper hand as she rolls him after one wild night. Then the scene shifts and he has gotten one over on her. They leap in and out of bed at various points because they are wildly attracted to one another.

It didn't work for me. If sparks were jumping between these two, if love and lust were in the air between them, I couldn't sense it. So there were two things we were supposed to care about: would Julia and Clive get together and, secondly, which of their clients would win in the spy war? More than an hour into this film, I realized I did not care about the resolution of either issue. I stopped watching it, I was that bored.

I am not a huge fan of Julia Roberts although I think she is talented. She just rarely does it for me as a romantic interest. Conversely, I LOVE Clive Owen and it is very rare for me to be bored with him. I also really liked CLOSER which also featured Owen and Roberts. They didn't need wild attraction to one another in that film though.

Much to my surprise, the NEW YORK TIMES absolutely loved this movie. Its review found this movie a stunning pairing of Roberts and Owen plus the spy scenario vastly entertaining. Its review says, "It's a caper movie, a love story -- with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, no less -- an extra-dry corporate satire. However you describe it, 'Duplicity' is superior entertainment, the most elegantly pleasurable movie of its kind to come around in a very long time." I was shocked to read this. I read the whole review and it's as if we were seeing two different movies! So go over and read that review if you are still interested in this film.

One word sums it up... BORING
I love Julia Roberts. I love Clive Owen. I hate this movie. I could only get through 50 minutes of the 125 minute film. It was just too painful because its so boring. The dialogue felt really forced between the characters. I didn't feel like I was watching real people. Everyone is so busy trying to be clever and "cool" with every line that the focus of the plot becomes terribly lost. This is the first time I watched a Julia Roberts film that I couldn't finish.

Not clever enough by half
Clive Owen is the greatest thing to come along in the Leading Man Department since George Clooney, and, come to think of it, Duplicity is a movie that would very much like to recapture the spark of that classic Clooney vehicle Out of Sight. Julia Roberts, on the other hand, is no Jennifer Lopez. Roberts has aged into a technically competent but utterly uncharismatic actress, and she plays an essentially unattractive character here unattractively. It's a role that really needed some of that old Roberts sparkle, but most of the time, she just seems old. The ultimate selling-point for this movie, then, is Tony Gilroy's script. Gilroy wants us awfully to see how clever he is, but this tale of double-crossing double agents really just plays like an overlong episode of the old TV series Alias, but funnier. By the time Duplicity lurches to its rather logically fuzzy conclusion, the final twist isn't nearly as surprising as Gilroy thinks it is. As a director, meanwhile, Gilroy wants awfully to be Steven Soderbergh, even resorting to split-screen devices and non-chronological narrative elements. But he just doesn't have Soderbergh's frisson. Among the supporting players, Tom Wilkinson is utterly wasted, while Paul Giamatti (although a little bit hammy and more than a little too young for the role he's playing) continues to demonstrate why he's his generation's finest character actor. Movies come alive when his funny mug comes on screen.