"Deception" (2008) - Movie Review

There is groundbreaking predictability in the “Deception” and it gets under our skin more than usual because its first act boasts more than it should. The first act is the only proof that there was some work put on this and also the erotic scenes for what its worth. It is a brilliant effort by director Marcel Langenegger in trumping the cinematic clichés or half covered secrets and fully blown suspense. It almost spits on us in a crass desecrating virtue of total incompetence and disinterest in the mid section of it. More than it is a bad movie, it deceives (no pun intended) us in convincing to be a good film at the beginning.

A bored accountant amongst the overflow of numbers in his life is Jonathan (Ewan MacGregor) is impressed by the testosterone command and control a man named Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) poses. To make Ewan McGregor a math nerd, there are two steps (1) Gel the hair and make an uncomfortable combing so that the drip of the fluid might anytime fall off (2) Glasses and it should be gaudy in contemporary taste. That did not strike me when they show tears and glimpse of love potion in to the eyes of a mysterious girl named S (Michelle Williams). With a mix up of each other’s phone, Jonathan gets into the sex club wherein successful women mate with unemotional intimacy. No trouble, pure pleasure.

Soon Jonathan gets into bed with successful and extremely attractive women in the city. It is of course too good to be true and we begin to suspect whether Jonathan in the number craze has come up with a vivid figment of imagination. That would have been clichéd but it could have been an exploration of a man with a successful career been devoid of intimacy in his dry wandering. Even he does not have a permanent office due to the accounting auditing journey he goes through each company. Well, I am taking the film more seriously than it takes itself.

When there is a mention of physical material or issue repetitive in a posing secretive film, those are the cues to be picked upon for us to piece the picture blind folded. There is a Kevlar tennis racket, a leaky pipe line, a cell phone mixed up never gets the right owner and finally a toy duck for emotional suspense (I cannot believe I spelt that). It goes dumb, lethargic and irresponsible in the screenplay, editing and directing. It is a product of some worst uncared work in a much highly funded and highly cast film in recent times.

Honestly the outrage is the presence of better if not good movie making which did its purpose in the first act. I really was mesmerized by the shot astounding stature and control Jackman brings to the character. Aside the bad make over; McGregor’s instant and instinct urge to follow the call had myriads of hope rooted in the supposed erotic thriller. I guess it is the abuse they made to the film in the two halves evident of the carelessness they take on which raged me.

When you show no face of a dead body, it is the laziest effort to conceal suspense. “Deception” is not in anyway a sincere attempt in giving a good thriller or for that fact a solid character to be remembered upon. Going back the plot to even making sense of the discrepancies they make is not a qualified act for a moviegoer.