Julia Roberts in "Duplicity"
courtesy of Universal Home Entertainment
“Julia Is Back”

When “Duplicity” was first released to theaters, audiences found it to be is a movie with so many twists and tangles that it ended up unraveling the audience’s patience, and sent them out of theaters exhausted and unamused. Now that the film is out on DVD you can retrace the scenes and watch again and again those which confuse you. This still may not be enough to make the movie enjoyable.

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in this too clever by half film about corporate espionage. It probably is clever but it is also so confusing that by the movie’s end you just don’t care.

Claire (Roberts) and Ray (Owen) meet when she is working for the CIA and he is working for MI6. She apparently seduces him and steals some secrets. They meet again several years later when she is his contact for a corporate scheme to steal secrets. He is working for a company headed up by Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti) and she is a spy in a company headed up by Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson). 

The movie uses flashbacks to explain what is happening in the present and why. One flashback is okay; two flashbacks are tolerable; three is annoying and FOUR, forget about it. In this film you get whiplash from all the going back and forth.

Roberts has been off the screen since her cameo in “Charlie Wilson’s War.” She is now the mother of three and much has been made of this. Well Julia hasn’t changed, the roles have just gotten smaller. As Claire she doesn’t get to show any of the patented Julia sparkle. She looks drab and acts drab.

Owen is handsome and masculine opposite her, but with this script there is no chemistry created. Deadliest of all is the fact you never forget they are acting. I never bought their characters or the plot that surrounded them.

In this film the sub-characters are the most believable. Giamatti and Wilkinson inhabit their characters completely while Denis O’Hare and Kathleen Chalfant impress as fellow corporate spies.

‘Duplicity” is not a good “comeback” movie for Roberts. She needed a film that lets her shine; this one manages to keep her beauty blunted and her personality under wraps. The combination of Roberts/Owen might have looked good on paper but on screen it is a zero. Throw in Tony Gilroy’s confusing script and muddled direction and you have a blueprint for disaster.

Again it being on DVD might help with the confusion but there is a load of it to overcome. Good luck!


There aren’t a lot of reasons to get the DVD of “Fighting” but the main one is Channing Tatum. The second one is Terrence Howard. These two men give the one two punch to this tale of bare knuckles boxing in New York City. With lesser actors it wouldn’t have caused a ripple in Hollywood but with these two on board it is worth watching. Tatum shows acting talent in this movie that he kept under wraps in “G. I. Joe.”.

Shawn MacArthur (Tatum) is a guy basically living on the streets of New York. Why, we don’t know. He makes a “living” selling books, DVD’s and umbrellas on the sidewalks of the city. One day some punks try to rip him off and he gets into a fight. This fight is observed by Harvey Boarden (Howard), a promoter of sorts.

Boarden offers Shawn a chance to make some money by fighting. The winner will get ten thousand, the loser nothing. Gullible Shawn agrees and the movie takes off from there as Shawn becomes a sensation on the underground boxing circuit.

Shawn also finds romance with a cocktail waitress at a club where the boxers and sponsors go. Her name is Zulay (Zulay Henao) and she lives with her grandmother and daughter. She brings out Shawn’s protective instincts. Eventually she, Boarden and Shawn are all caught up in a get rich quick scheme that may leave them all dead.

Tatum has a mumbling, bumbling charm to him. He has the physique and the face for the part and his awkwardness endears him to the audience. His romantic scenes with Henao show a tender side that women are going to love. This guy could have a major career ahead of him. 

As Boarden, Howard has a sad neediness. He is the ultimate outsider looking for way to get back on the fast track to success, but knowing it will probably never happen. Tatum flashes star power with his looks and personality while Howard does it with pure acting skills.

“Fighting” is a movie about fighting. It could have been a Jean Claude Van Damme starrer in that actor’s younger days. Of course he would have given it his own flair. Tatum makes it an interesting movie just because he is interesting, and Howard does the rest.

“Adventureland” is a self indulgent, boring look at one man’s summer job. Writer/director Gregg Mottola takes us back to 1987 for a look at how someone like him might have spent his summer as a worker at a rundown amusement park. It probably has all kind of meaning for Mottola but for general audiences this DVD “adventure” is just a big waste of time.

James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is a college graduate with plans to live in Europe for a summer before starting grad school in New York. Those plans are shattered when his parents (Wendie Malick and Jack Gilpin) break the news they have had a reversal in finances so he will have to get a job. Sadly the only job James, a college graduate, can get is as a “game operator” at Adventureland Amusement Park.

During this summer of fun he meets a co-worker named Em (Kristen Stewart) and falls for her. The only problem is that she has a secret boyfriend, the married repairman named Connell (Ryan Reynolds). James is unaware of this attachment so he pursues Em with hearty fervor.

The problem with the movie is that James is such a doofus that you can never imagine a girl like Em wanting to spend any time with him. As a college graduate he is totally awkward in the smallest of social situations. Em on the other hand exudes cool and confidence.

Eisenberg appears to be playing James just as the character is written, so the faults of believability lie with the writer and not him. Still the character of James comes off as a fifteen year old rather than a twenty-one year old. 

Stewart has the angsty heroine down to perfection. Her film name could easily be Bella and all the “Twilight” addicts would know exactly how she was going to act in this movie. There is nothing new here, just the same old same old.

The only character in the film with potential is Connell, and Reynolds isn’t given enough screen time to develop him. Reynolds looks and acts like a movie star and you expect his character to be more fleshed out but he isn’t.

About half way through the movie it dawns on you that you just don’t really care what happens to these characters. They are just pot-smoking, alcohol guzzling losers who don’t have a clue about life or love. So if they don’t care what happens, why should we?

There is no adventure in “Adventureland,” or much of anything else. There is talent on screen but the writing and the lack of character development sinks this ship of fools.

Talent abounds in the DVD comedy “These Old Broads.” The plot and cast harken back several decades ago to when Eddie Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor. Now we have a film that stars Debbie and Liz, plus Joan Collins and Shirley MacLaine, that has a story that loosely tells that tale.

The story/screenplay is by Carrie Fisher who is the daughter of Reynolds and Fisher. Sort of incestuous isn’t it? The movie isn’t that great but I think you might enjoy seeing Debbie and Liz on screen together and it is worth renting for that fact alone.
 

 

 

 

 

©2009 Jackie K. Cooper

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