Julia Roberts and Clive Owen starring in a spy movie? I thought it was a weird combination, but as I really like spy films I decided to give it a chance. Is it worth watching?
Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts) are both spies who have known each other for a long time. They decide to work together and use their spying skills to make money doing espionage for companies. By stealing the secrets of a company they see an opportunity to become very wealthy and not having to work anymore. Claire starts her job for Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Ray works for Garsick (Paul Giametti), who are running competing companies and who can’t stand each other. Garsick uses a whole team of spies to find out which secrets his rival has. Ray is put on the case as well and he has to pretend he doesn’t know Claire as otherwise Garsick might see that it’s a setup. The big question of course is if they are able to steal Garsick’s big secret to allow them to retire.
The movie really felt like a mess. A big part of this was the constant jumps in time where sometimes as a viewer I would have questions which were not necessary. Normally I don’t mind if the timeline in a movie is mixed up (for example Pulp Fiction or 21 Grams), but it just doesn’t work in this movie. Towards the end everything starts to become clear, but for me it was already too late as I lost interest.
The focus of the story apparently is the relationship between Owen and Roberts, but they weren’t convincing at all. I didn’t have the feeling the two were in love and had a good relationship, willing to do anything for each other. This meant I didn’t believe the rest of the story either. Although the movie has its moments, the end result was a very disappointing film which I suggest to skip.
Score: 4