Film Screening 29th May, 2009

Poster for Duplicity

Duplicity 

8:00 PM, 29th May, 2009

  • PG
  • 125 mins
  • 2009
  • Tony Gilroy
  • Tony Gilroy
  • Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti

Bored with the low-paid world of government intelligence, CIA agent Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have traded in their covert careers for the considerably more lucrative profession of corporate espionage. When a new medical discovery guarantees to help whoever patents it put their competitors out of business, America's two biggest pharmaceutical companies race to secure the product. And who better to hire than the best (if not, surely the most attractive) corporate spies in the business?

Unbeknownst to the companies however, Stenwick and Koval share more than just a profession: the ex-spies have a romantic past and now even a potential future together when they team up to pull off the ultimate con on their respective employers.

Duplicity is the latest effort from Tony Gilroy, who most recently brought us Michael Clayton and wrote the Jason Bourne trilogy. While this is decidedly lighter fare, Gilroy is no less adept, spinning a wonderfully witty web of deceit, intrigue and, of course, intense heist sequences that no caper film should be without!

Owen and Roberts reunite as clandestine lovers with their collective charisma and charm no less magnetic than it was with their electrifying performances in 2004's Closer. Also on board are the always-entertaining Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, perfectly cast as the CEOs of the warring companies. No one plays the scheming corporate type quite as well!

Featuring snappy dialogue, disguises, accents and practically guaranteed double-crosses, Duplicity is one film I'll gladly be duped into seeing.

Adrian Ma

Poster for The Unborn

The Unborn 

10:15 PM, 29th May, 2009

  • M
  • 87 mins
  • 2009
  • David S. Goyer
  • David S. Goyer
  • Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet, Carla Gugino

Casey Beldon (Yustman) is a college student who suddenly begins seeing scorpions in her eggs, dogs with masks and all sorts of other crazy things. Her doctor gives her a boring reason for all of this craziness ((ndash)) a retinal irregularity usually seen in twins ((ndash)) but it takes her Holocaust-surviving grandmother to root out the much more evil reason. And wouldn't you know it, the Nazis are involved.

The reason the creepy blue-eyed zombie child keeps following her around has something to do with experiments done on Casey's great uncle in Auschwitz that naturally turned him into a mythical Jewish demon: and it's up to Gary Oldman, as a Rabbi, to perform an exorcism.

The Unborn delivers both scares and a well-done story that keeps you involved. The music is effective, the visuals creepy and overall the movie is pretty entertaining. Having said that, there were occasions where the film was more comedic than scary and had me and the people around me laughing when we probably shouldn't have been; but there were definitely still moments that had me jumping out of my seat and perhaps in some ways the comedic scenes made the movie that much more entertaining. A Film Group audience will definitely bring out the best in this film so don't miss it!

Tamara Lee