Having just finished the enormously disappointing 'The International,' a 2009 espionage thriller starring Clive Owen, I can't believe I saw 'Duplicity'…another 2009 espionage thriller starring Clive Owen. Sue me, I'm a Julia Roberts fan, I actually like Owen – we all make mistakes so no judgments on some projects, and I love a good 'Ocean's Eleven'-type spy/dark comedy. Fortunately, after having to take several breaks in 'Duplicity' and wanting to turn this off for good, I stuck through to the end. I'm glad I did. Few horrible movies, as I thought this was slowly becoming, reach out and grab me in the closing. Perfect movie? By no means; it's barely average, but if you allow yourself, like I did, to reach the climax, you'll probably be equally surprised. After roughly three-dozen "two weeks ago," "ten years ago," etc, flashbacks, you'll learn Roberts and Owen are capers in love attempting to make a heist (and life) together using their trained skills. After awhile, they settle down between two rivaling companies bent on cosmetology, products, etc. You, the viewer, pick up clues along the way on whose side who's on and who you can trust. Big problems with the film started with an maddening slow-mo Wilkinson/Giamatti intro, then the endless boxed in scenes (dang, I know style, but this was as ridiculous and annoying as Lee's 'Hulk' comic book, uh, approach to minimizing the screen) and with the extreme lack of chemistry between the two leads. Sure, Owens is swift and good, but Roberts looks fresh off the 'Ocean's' set, with almost zero charisma she was built on in the early 90s. In fact, she just looks tired. Motherhood might do that. Nevertheless, it had its moments, and the end ties all the confusion you'll have. I certainly did until the last act.

Now Duplicity does have its good moments. It does have fine performances from Clive Owen and Julia Roberts while Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti acquit themselves well among the supporting cast if a tad underused. The film is strikingly filmed and has interesting locations, while the soundtrack is pretty good. And the script had several funny and intelligent moments.

However, the story is very clumsily told, confusing, bloated and predictable, one that started off very well but meandered in the second half up until the awful ending which suffers from a big plot-hole. The direction is merely okay, but it needed to be more focused, and particularly when the story started meandering the pacing could have been more secure but it dragged. Duplicity is also about 10 minutes too long.

Overall, not a bad movie, but flat. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I was expecting a lot better from folks like Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. But Duplicity had me thinking that it was the audience that was taken for a ride.

Roberts and Owen play rival industrial spies and they have some bad history between them. Back when they were real secret agents Roberts got Owen burned and he lost his job with MI6. She too leaves the CIA under a bit of a cloud. I thought at least back then our countries were allies.

Post the real spy game these two are now industrial spies stealing trade secrets from competitors. In the end they team up professionally looking for a trade secret that man has been looking for since the dawn of time.

I never felt Roberts and Owen had any real chemistry between them in this movie. Looked a lot like they were going through the motions.

Duplicity drags in spots could have used a half hour less at least. And it would be nice if this secret they were after comes out for real. Folks in my family could use it.