Duplicity (2008 Tony Gilroy & scr)

Why do Clive Owen and Julia Roberts run through exactly the same dialogue in New York that they exchanged in Rome three years earlier? There's a reason in Gilroy's snaky and ingenious thriller (though I'm not sure it needed to be exactly the same dialogue - we see them rehearsing it again later). Anyway, it revolves around competition between rival manufacturers Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, based on the spurious notion that inventions always need to be stolen .. hmm.

Cast includes Tom McCarthy, Oleg Stefan, Denis O'Hare, Kathleen Chalfant, Wayne Duvall, Carrie Preston (from The Good Wife). Shot by Robert Elswit in Panavision (quite shallow focus). Edited by Tony's younger brother John.

Gilroy the elder wrote of course Michael Clayton, the Bourne films, the adaptation of State of Play, and latterly the dodgy The Great Wall, Rogue One (Felicity Jones in Star Wars prequel) and High Wire Act (Rosamund Pike and John Hamm Beirut thriller).

Paying attention helps.

Like many a globe-trotting film it doesn't really make any use of its locations (Rome, Geneva, London).