I used to think that Clive Owen was a good actor, mainly because I liked his character in Gosford Park. I have been wondering why he subsequently seemed to always take roles where he was playing an emotionless robot of some kind or another. Then my wife pointed out that his role in Gosford Park was very small, and it was completely supported by phenomenal performances all around him and a phenomenal script and story, and in fact if you look at his performance in isolation, he really just has to utter somewhat robotic lines, like “My mother had me. A little while later she died. End of story.”

His co-star, Julia Roberts, is about as miscast as is humanly possible. Julia Roberts is a true movie star, and as such she is basically tolerable in an incredibly wide range of roles. But in this film we have hit the limit. What they needed was some young generic red-hot blond corporate monster-woman to play opposite robotic Clive Owen. They needed someone who we could believe would actually go for Clive, at least in a cold, post-modern kind of way. But instead we get poor Julia Roberts trying to act like a nasty bitch – just doesn’t work.

So, put these two together in a film with a bad script, a dumb story and a disappointing ending and what do you have? A wasted evening, that’s what.

To say they don’t have chemistry is a bit of an understatement. There is a palpably repulsive energy between them. They look like they would rather shovel shit than kiss each other. It’s kind of hard to swallow all the unbelievable stuff in the movie if you can’t even swallow the central love story (which is the only reason they are working together at all.)

The actual plot itself is not that interesting, and what little quality it has falls off rather quickly. And to make matters worse, the constant cutting back and forth from flashbacks is not cleverly done – it does not even successfully disguise the weak story, à la Pulp Fiction. In fact, it highlights the weakness of the story. Plus, they make very, very bad use of multi-frame screens. It makes the entire film look amateurish, that’s how badly this particular effect is done.

By the way, this movie has some of the worst opening credits I can remember, perhaps the worst of all time – the two balding CEO’s cursing at each other in SUPER SLOOOOW MOOOOTION, to some frantic but generic-sounding and boring 70s jam session. God, it is just excruciating to sit through. It’s not even the slightest bit funny or clever, especially since at this point in the film you don’t even know who those two people are, except by virtue of having seen the preview.

Now that I think about it, they really are the worst opening credits in the history of cinema!