Movie: Duplicity
Where We Saw It: Penn Cinemas in Lititz, PA. It was out first trip to the movie theater in a while. I can’t remember the last time we went, actually.
Food/Beverages Consumed: Junior Mints for Erica and Milk Duds for myself. And a bottled Dasani we snuck into the theater. After 4 milk duds I was regretting not going with the nachos. (Though I probably would have said the same thing about the nachos had I chosen them.)
Movie Synopsis in Twitteresque 140 characters or less: Clive Owen & Julia Roberts are secret agents involved in a secret plot. But are they secretly playing each other? Shhh. It’s a secret.
The Beginning: I don’t know, because we missed it. The movie date was a last minute thing and we got to the theater 5 minutes late. Erica went right in to get seats and I waited in line for 10 minutes to pay $5.25 for candy I could have got at Wawa for $1.89. When I sat down Erica said, “Julia Roberts and Clive Owen hooked up and then some businessmen had a meeting.” So there’s your beginning.
You should NOT see this movie if: You can’t stand Julia Roberts…You hated Ocean’s Eleven…You hate it when the plot is purposefully confusing in the middle of the movie (like the 60-year old woman next to me who told her husband “I’m not sure what’s going on” every 15 minutes)…You have vowed to never see another movie Paul Giamatti is a part of…you don’t like rooting for criminals…you have a fatal allergic reaction to the mention of Hawaiian pizza. (In which case I just killed you, and I’m sorry.)
The Ending: It was pretty good. Don’t want to ruin the movie for you, but I didn’t walk away feeling like the whole movie got jacked up by a dumb ending. Incredibly satisfying? No. But good enough.
Should You spend $25 to go see it in the theaters: No. But I’d probably say that about almost any movie.
No seriously, Should I Go See it, Rent it, or Skip it? I would say this falls pretty safely into the “rent it” category. I just wouldn’t start watching it after 10:30pm. Between the confusing (in a good way) plot and a 2-hour running time, you might not make it through the entire movie. If you’re set on going to see something at the movies, I think you can do a lot worse than this one. Just not sure it demands a trip to the theater to be seen.
Expectations Going In: I was expecting an Ocean’s Eleven type movie that was not as good as Ocean’s 11 but better than Ocean’s 12.
Cannarf Rating: I got pretty much what I was expecting on this one. I liked the fact that the plot always seemed 2 steps ahead of me, so that was a good thing. But then I felt like the ending wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. So in the end, I’m gonna say it all evened out and I got what I expected…which in this case was a good thing. The Rating: 0 cannarfs. (what’s a cannarf?)
Have any of you seen Duplicity? If so, what’s your cannarf rating?
Posted by Bryan AllainTags: Cannarf Rating System, Duplicity
That’s on my list of movies to see, but I’ll probably wait to rent it.
giamatti was in this? i didnt see him in the commercials. i am a big clive owen fan. i saw inside man and derailed recently and they were both really good.
I agree with your assessment, not as good as Ocean’s 11. I also thought it needed tighter editing or something. Just felt slow a lot to me. We definitely liked it though, and liked that we never got ahead of the plot.
yeah, Lori I think you’re onto something with the tighter editing. There were a few times I remember thinking that a certain shot was unnecessarily long, and that’s not something i would typically think.
jordan, giamatti played a supporting role in it. not a ton of airtime, but important to the plot. and yes, Clive was good in this for sure. I liked what he and Roberts had going.