Where do we start with Tony Gilroy’s misfire of the romantic comedy species fused with the clever caper genre? It’s delectably wicked and stylish, but overdone and ultimately overwrought. We’re a little surprised certain critics we like enjoyed the film, but then again, the picture does have a fitting 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes which is close to where we’d slot it.
File it under: Fellatio intrigue or duplicitous spy porn? Yeah, something like that. It’s just way too pleased with itself and its tricky fake-out formula to realize it’s mostly bereft of any soul, like an opulent hotel room that houses no guests.
What begins as an ultra-pleasurable luxury handjob that delights and titillates, goes on for far too long and begins to actually bore and chafe. Excess is excess and Gilroy doesn’t know when to stop the ride; over massaging the story conceits at every turn.
Given that in trades high-end delights, the first 30 minutes, maybe even the first hour (if we’re being generous) is razor sharp — ‘Bourne’-like smarts with more stylistic extravagance, through a more tolerable “Oceans 12” filter, but the highly wound calibrations and pitch of this double-cross upon double cross falls off its visual axis and the meticulous blueprint goes down a rabbit hole that becomes more tedious than exhilarating. It’s “fun” initially, but the amusement is slight and doesn’t pay off or go anywhere we haven’t been before. By the time the couple (Julia Roberts and Clive Owen) get down to admitting their love, we stopped caring. We can’t remember the last time we went from immediately enjoying a film to feeling completely removed and distant from it before the credits rolled. Like a first date that’s initially appealing, sometimes too much over-involved foreplay makes you realize scoring is just not going to be worth it in the end. [B-]
