It doesn't happen often, but once in a while, it's possible for a film to be both under- and over-cooked at the same time. Writer-director Eric Rochant's Möbius is a case in point. The double-crossed romance at its heart flirts with being fascinating but doesn't quite get there, buried as it is within the conspiracy-laden, high-stakes world of big business and covert intelligence.

While monitoring the offshore activities of crooked Russian tycoon Ivan Rostrovsky (Tim Roth), Russian secret agent Gregory Lioubov (Jean Dujardin) talent-spots Alice Redmond (Cecile De France), a brilliant international banker so spectacular she was banned from working in America after the Lehman Bros scandal. Not realising that Alice is already working with the CIA, Gregory directs his team to recruit and use her to get closer to Rostrovsky. Inevitably, secrets and conspiracies pile up, with Gregory only complicating matters when he stumbles into a forbidden relationship with Alice.

There are a few moments and ideas that shine through Möbius, no doubt the ones that most inspired Rochant to construct a script around them. These come mainly in the relationship between Alice and Gregory – or Moses, as she knows him. Their connection is under-written, suggested more through soul-shuddering orgasms than what is technically in the script. Nevertheless, Dujardin and de France just about make it work, whether Gregory is brazenly deceiving his colleagues to answer a call from Alice or they're sharing a final, quietly devastating scene together.

But their efforts are let down by an overly complicated plot, one that feels as if it doesn't make much sense even when all is revealed. The motivations of every agency involved are murky at best. The CIA comes off the worst, its agents lurking stupidly through a handful of scenes as their ties with Alice ebb and flow in quite mysterious fashion. The Americans in the cast must also grapple with the unwieldy, soapy chunks of dialogue they're given. As a result, the film loses steam when it should gain tension.

A Möbius strip, as a character explains quite late in the film, is a deceptively simple phenomenon. Half-twist a strip of paper, fasten the two ends together, et voila: something utterly simple rendered impossibly complicated – a never-ending loop, a two-dimensional model with only one surface. Rochant meant for the strip to be a metaphor for the dilemma in which his characters find themselves. It's rather appropriate, though perhaps not quite how he intended it, that the strip also serves as an apt metaphor for the entire film.

For a change, it is eventful to watch non-Hollywood type of thriller, with more mind-twists and less chases or killings. Romantic angle is usually proper as well, especially among the French and by talented actors like Jean Dujardin and Cécile de France, but the film in question became too wistful and tensions faded away even where appropriate... True, the chemistry between them was pleasant and erotic scenes added "French touch" but - as mentioned - one could easily forget the background with at least 3 secret services striving for getting their aims fulfilled.

Moreover, the story became too complex as well at times, but what I liked was multiple solutions in the ending, and the very final scene provides food for thought. The use of Russian actors was good (as it is a Russian-French film), however, the contrast of pure Russian spoken by them and that by Dujardin and Tim Roth (depicting Russian gangster Rostovsky) became too obvious.

Nevertheless, if you like calm spy films, then Möbius is more than an entertainment.

We went to see Mobius on it's first evening showing in our local movie theater. We were pleasantly surprised by an interesting spy movie with contemporary plot.

First the good parts: The movie is filmed very very well - with excellent editing and beautiful outside shots in Monaco and Moskva. The acting is excellent and the plot has more than a few twists and enough mystery to keep you interested.

The only thing I was sure, was that being Russian - no one would be happy in the end and without spoiling the plot - you will not be disappointed from that aspect.

The not so good parts The movie is a bit slow moving and the dialog could have been crisper. The co-star's English was noticeably French-accented and not American which took away from the credibility of the character. The director could have done a better job on the Americans; the American CIA characters were stereotypical and portrayed in a way that I imagine many Europeans visualize Americans.