'Duplicity' Does Double Duty

"Duplicity" is not really a romantic comedy. Watch the trailer for your fill of the love stuff -- for the strung-together sexy glances between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen; for the verbal volleying about thongs -- but this is not "Closer: The Cuddly Version." This isn't even as fuzzy as "Charade." There might be some hotel hanky-panky, and the seductive clinking of champagne glasses in just about every city in the world, but that's just a (perfectly pleasant) backdrop.

And thank God for that. The real reason you shouldn't miss "Duplicity" is for director/writer Tony Gilroy's skewering of white-collar titans -- a premise that could not come at a more appropriate moment. These are, after all, the days when Bernie Madoff escapes a perp walk; when John Thain spruces up his office for a cool $1 million-plus; when bailout cash is being put to good use at champagne brunches.  And so far, Hollywood has been, well, a lagging indicator. Name me a weekend in 2009 when a movie with a foolishly out-of-touch premise hasn't hit theaters. January: Two brides beat the silk stuffing out of each other over their same-day, extravagant nuptials. February: A fashion lover freezes her Visa to blockade purchase of more fox-fur stoles. And a few weeks from now, we'll have another movie -- the second in 2009 alone -- about the stewardship of suburban mega-malls, and the spendthrift-y hordes that tramp through them.

In "Duplicity," the twin peaks of the cosmetics industry are CEOs Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti) -- the billionaires whom our lovebird heroes are trying to subvert. We're introduced to their rivalry with a scene already made famous by promo clips: Tully and Garsik come reeling at one another in slow motion, situated on the tarmac below their respective private jets, each basically trying to sucker-punch the other first. It's completely arresting more than it's funny: the men are whirligigs of blue-suited limbs, the slow motion exaggerating their flabby, steak-dinner jowls. It sounds like a gag, but looks like a painting -- bodies by Robert Longo, faces by Lucian Freud.

Giamatti, who appears more frequently in the film, is the real scene-stealer of the supporting ensemble. All that bluster and spastic screaming that raised eyebrows in "John Adams" seems pitch-perfect in an armored Escalade. He is a total boor -- and yet vulnerable, as shown in a late scene at a bowling alley, in which he ham-handedly tries to woo Roberts with some crappy, microwaved bowling-alley food. Later he unloads on an assistant, who's quietly brushing his face with powder before he takes the stage at a shareholders' convention. Despite the ample dusting, Garsik's visage glints and gleams evilly under the heavy lights, and despite his sour backstage demeanor, his words ooze aw-shucks warmth in front of the roaring convention center. He's totally, thoroughly despicable in every way -- and yet, so clueless and desperate that he manages to snag the crumbs of our pity.

Wilkinson's Tully, meanwhile, is the ice to Garsik's fire. He lurks in a spectacularly metaphoric office, its only contents a large, polished stone slab (his desk), a sliver of a cordless phone, and a meticulously maintained bonsai tree. He is Zen and unfeeling -- heartless where Giamatti is mawkish and clammy. He's also the architect of more than we initially understand at the film's outset -- but of course -- which makes his distant self-deification a whole lot creepier.

With all the continuing, deepening economic gloom, it's sort of nice to stick corporate evil in the celluloid crosshairs -- and even better that, after a thrilling two hours, these guys fade to black.