Deception

Last week, when reviewing 88 Minutes, I said, “[Director Jon Avnet] hits us with a constant stream of titillations.” Well, Deception is more like a thunderstorm of titillation. Too bad it wasn’t a tornado of titillation, because this movie needed something to get us excited.

Ewan McGregor stars as Jonathan – an accountant without many friends, who works too hard and has a secret desire to get his mojo working. One day, a gregarious lawyer, Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman), befriends the nerdy numbers cruncher, and he starts to bring out a wilder side in Jonathan. When they accidentally end up with each other’s cell phones, the accountant starts to get anonymous calls from high powered, sexy women looking for Wyatt, who happens to be a member of a mysterious sex club. While it sounds like fun, and our bean counter starts to get his mojo into second gear, Jonathan soon ends up in over his head.

Will Jonathan get out of a sticky situation when a woman he meets ends up missing?

Will he ever find her again?

Deception is not the worst movie you will ever see, but it goes on twenty minutes too long and has two plot twists too many. Like many movies before it, Deception wants to be as dirty, sexy and thrilling as Basic Instinct, but it’s more like Eyes Wide Shut or Basic Instinct 2.

Director Marcel Langenegger seems to know the movie has the possibility to be a naughty, tension-filled thriller, but fails to deliver any of that. People looking for steaminess will be disappointed when the sex factor is dropped quite quickly, and those looking for thrills will be disappointed when you realize Deception is just a blah, average movie with the typical twists and turns that you can predict too easily.

Writer Mark Bomback comes up with all sorts of blasé names and lines of dialogue peppering Deception with the taste and smell of mediocrity. The exclusive sex club simply is known as “The List”. Callers ask each other, “Are you free tonight?” as the weakest come on line since the last time I was hitting on a woman at a party. Then, you have to blame Bomback for providing those dreadful last couple of plot twists. Beyond being stupid, it doesn’t reflect the reality that Jonathan has gotten a bit savvier and tougher since his life is in danger.

Jackman is fine as the guy who seems to have the dream life, but his last scene in Deception is one he might not want to include on the audition tape, but McGregor is too Opie Cunnigham for a guy who works in powerful Manhattan law firms and financial institutions. Even the neediest of losers would have wised up to this situation much quicker.

Deception doesn’t even meet the expectations of the late night Cinemax audience.

Deception is rated R for sexual content, language, brief violence and some drug use