Buy it... if you're an enthusiast of David Holmes' distinct style of snazzy jazz for film scores, because James Newton Howard's sound for Duplicity is remarkably similar in its constructs and instrumentation.

Avoid it... if you've never been able to appreciate Holmes' best known soundtracks due to their inability to function as anything greater than their inherently contemporary atmosphere.

Howard

Duplicity: (James Newton Howard) Following up on his convoluted but awarded Michael Clayton, director Tony Gilroy fashions yet another film involving corporate interests in non-linear story-telling fashion. In Duplicity, however, the genre switches to romantic comedy disguised as suspenseful intrigue, raising the formula of the spy versus spy scenario from decades past and translating it from the context of warring governments into one of competing corporations. The chemistry between leads Julia Roberts and Clive Owen is key to ensuring that these two conniving tricksters at the top of their games and on seemingly opposite sides are actually in love with each other. Gilroy handles the script with enough skill to maintain audience interest through perpetual motion and surprising twists in plot, crucial elements if any film like Duplicity is to succeed. The collaboration between Gilroy and composer James Newton Howard for Michael Clayton led to an unlikely and undeserving Academy Award nomination for Howard. That score was a frightfully dull, atmospheric experience that was carried by the gravity of its picture, translating into one of the composer's weakest album presentations of the 2000's. The equation is obviously quite different for Duplicity, with the fluffier feel of the hybrid thriller and espionage tale requiring a far heightened sense of style. The resulting foray into the world of snazzy, multi-cultural jazz and the atmosphere of heist music from yesteryear is a departure from Howard's usual sound in the decade. Gravitating towards dramatic projects of serious weight or intrigue and fantasy, Howard's career has been missing the flashy tones of contemporary jazz and light rock in earnest for quite some time. The resulting exposition of upbeat, propulsive music is extremely stylish in its ingredients pulled from several similar genres, though its tone is so overwhelmingly saturated with the spirit of the on-screen sparring that at times the work borders the realm of the obnoxious. As such, parts of the caper score skirt parody territory, which isn't a major detractor in this genre of film, but it doesn't help the already fragmented listening experience when heard out of context. Either this music will put a smile on your face or it'll give you a tremendous headache, and for Howard collectors in particular, this is a tricky prospect.

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Instead of treating Duplicity like a score that relies on any of the trademark sounds of Howard's career, consider it a combination of styles from David Holmes, David Arnold, John DuPrez, and John Powell, with a hint of Edward Shearmur or Michael Giacchino thrown in during the moments of full ensemble enthusiasm. The connections to Holmes' work are by far the most definitive, with much of this score sounding like Ocean's Eleven or Analyze That. The contemporary band elements are all used in the same ways, and there's a significant influence from the most hip of sounds that the 1970's had to offer. Parts seem intentionally dated in sound, while others insert just enough synthetic sampling in the rhythms to draw references to modern technology. A small orchestra consisting of strings, woodwinds and limited brass does not make any dramatic statements on its own. The long cue "The Formula" perhaps best utilizes their services, producing an exciting cue that reminds of Powell's related music for the later films in the franchise of The Bourne Identity. Several of the soloists do shine, however, and it's in the piano and acoustic guitar solos that the score's romantic qualities exist. There are no explicitly developed themes in Duplicity, though Howard does indeed offer a descending idea that is carried through the score's many changes in identity. That constant shifting of tone, instrumentation, and pacing is the inherent problem with the soundtrack. There seems to be a marginal influence of several cultures on the score, too, most notably in the Latin tones of the guitar and "Split to Miami," which is highly reminiscent of Graeme Revell's Out of Time. The pair of "San Diego Airport" and "Airport Love" offer guitar solos easy on the ears, and "A Cream or a Lotion?" in the middle presents a lovely piano performance that is, surprisingly, the highlight of the score's serious half. Most will remember the music from Duplicity for its Holmes-like jazz of certain timelessness. Cue times are often very short, failing to yield a coherent whole when the score presented on album. That product ends with an absolutely wretched song, complete with female groans and the same awkwardly misbalanced personality from which the entire score suffers. It's hard to knock Howard for branching out into this genre and clearly enjoy himself in the creative process. But the album's 50 minutes are extremely disjoined due to the inherent schizophrenia that exists because of the film's constantly shifting gears. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31 (in 53 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.16 (in 58,041 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.