DUPLICITY

WARNING: These comments contain some spoilers:

Duplicity is a brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, excellently directed, old-fashioned in technique, modern in spirit, thoroughly entertaining film... until the last few minutes.

Then it confuses and disappoints, ending with the wrong payoff, weakly presented.

Much is often made, in films and stories about Hollywood, about how a studio forces some idealistic young director to change his ending -- the one with integrity -- to a softer ending in order to make more money. (eg. What Just Happened). Duplicity is the perfect example of where, if the studio had insisted on a different ending, they could have been right! Forget the fact (well, guess) that the film might have made twice as much money, the current ending just does not work. And right before the ending there is a bit of expository back-flashing that is confusing and so simple-minded, compared to the rest of the film, that it compounds the problem.

If, as one may guess, one element of the duplicity in the film is the ending, then perhaps the idea of the ending is OK, but the execution still fails completely.

By the way, the actors are innocent victims of whatever problems the film has:

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are both exceptional, classy in the classic way, and as tawdry as they should be.

As a side note, they act "bad acting" perfectly.

The other principal actors in the film are also excellent.

Enjoy the film up to the last few moments -- and then at the end, just re-write and re-direct the ending in your head.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

Charlie Wilson's War is an excellent film about the way that Congress came to back a large, covert CIA operation in Afghanistan, funding the Mujahideen rebels against the Soviets, through the efforts of Congressman Charles Wilson.

Acting by Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks (who actually looks something like Charlie Wilson), and Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin (who currently also has The Farnsworth Invention on Broadway) and directed by Mike Nichols, based on a book by George Crile.



It is superb story telling, based on things that really happened: the film takes advantage of the star power of the actors; their skill; Aaron Sorkin's brilliance at writing political drama; Mike Nichols sense of humor; and the fact that Charlie Wilson was both a colorful, drinking, ladies man, and a liberal congressman from Texas.

Politically, the film gently encourages us to root for the Mujahideen against the Russians; and suggests that the withdrawal of the Russians from Afghanistan was a factor in the break-up of Soviet Communism; then, still gently, it reminds us of how the US failure to rebuild Afghanistan after the war helped lead to the rise of the Taliban. It suggests that we must fight one war at a time, but we need to continue to do what is necessary at the end of a war. (This could be taken to suggest that in Iraq we need to stay and rebuild that country. Of course, the current debate is not about whether or not we should successfully rebuild Iraq, but whether our present actions are going to help or hinder that process.)

The film is fun, well made and interesting. It's basically a caper movie, where the caper is secretly funding a war.