Deception

What goes through a movie star’s head when they’re acting in a really generic movie? Are they hoping: maybe it’s not as bad as I think? Or do they know, even as they schlep through yet another tired and derivative scene, that the scene is tired, and derivative, and that some things you just do for money… for a new boat. Deception (the new erotic thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman) is so formulaic it needn’t even have been made. The producers could have written on the poster: “just think of [blank] and save yourself some money!” and even if nothing came to mind, you would be more thrilled than if you’d sat through this machine-tooled piffle.

Ninety per cent of what we learn about the characters we learn from their hair. Ewan McGregor has a fringe, ergo he is: virginal, naïve, a wallflower. Ewan works an accountant (read: nothing) for a big corporation. He has no friends. Life has misplaced his number. Then one day he meets Hugh Jackman, an executive (read: snake) with a line on an anonymous sex group strictly for high-fliers. It’s the sort of group you just know Donald Trump would like to belong to (if such groups didn’t keep misplacing his number) and Ewan jumps at the chance when Hugh asks him to join. But beware, Ewan! This sex-with-no-strings thing isn’t Hollywood. Like taking the money to star inDeception; this bargain comes at a price.

There are two kinds of movies Ewan McGregor tends to star in: those that make him famous and those that pay the rent. In the “famous” category you have movies like Moulin Rouge and Star Wars. In the “rent” category you have… a hell of a lot to choose from. McGregor is not the world’s pickiest of actors and he’ll sign up for any nonsense provided someone will agree to fund his next motorbike trip. InDeception, you’d be hard pushed to think of another actor who couldn’thave played this role, and McGregor is just as dull and substitute-teacher-reedy as the script needs him to be.

Hugh Jackman (taking a break from super-heroes and the demented masterpiece that was The Fountain) doesn’t have much to do but smile and look disingenuous in Deception, but he does both with that good-natured charisma that’s gotten him through worse than this. His job is to hand Ewan a phone and get off screen for much of the proceedings, but he manages to do this and make us want him to return (so he must be doing something right). Where McGregor always seems a bitjust-put-a-wart-on-me! (read: Method actor) to convince you he enjoys being a movie star, Jackman has a kind of huckster-debonair that convinces you he LOVES being a star. Just watch him roaming his hands over Michelle Williams or relishing the big, pull-out-the-stops f-word he uses after telling McGregor about foreplay.

Michelle Williams is also in the movie, acting “also in the movie” style. She’s required to be the blonde, and she does so with an expression like a latte that’s not too frothy.

The girl from Species turns up as a corpse.

Every interesting angle this story could have taken, the producers figured they’d do without. The anonymous sex group disappears after the half-way mark; the vague hints at identity-shifting are junked; Michelle Williams becomes the Love Interest for Ewan after one date (as I say, you know he won’t be allowed no-strings anonymous sex for long). It’s as if any wavering from absolute forget-ability is a risk the movie can’t afford. So Ewan adopts a look like a man Struggling to Understand; people scheme and plot against him until he Finds His Resolve; and the bad-guy is shot in a park, by exactly who we think is going to shoot him. Only no-one is around to notice his death, because everyone’s busy watching something else.

BOTTOM LINE: There's nothing new in this 'thriller' that you haven't seen before, and the visuals are quite ordinary; only the likeability of the cast make this worth spending any time on.

THE GOOD: 'Deception' follows an age-old premise that a director like Alfred Hitchcock would have milked for all it was worth. A young, naive accountant Jonathan (McGregor) who hasn't lived his life is befriended by an older, slick, hot-shot lawyer Wyatt (Jackman) who introduces him to a private sex club where participants only contact other participants for sex; no names, no details, no conversation. When Wyatt 'accidentally' switches his phone with Jonathan's, the latter is pulled in to the world of the sex club which he enjoys to full measure. It's only when he meets a stunning blonde (Michelle Williams) that he starts to fall for her and eventually pulls him in to a deceptive trap set by Wyatt. There's a lot to like about the premise, and there's a seedy, unspoken quality to the proceedings which you know will only lead Jonathan in to trouble. The cast is the standout in this film; Hugh Jackman does a surprisingly good turn as bad guy Wyatt, Ewan McGregor does quite well with his badly written part of Jonathan, and Michelle Williams is quite reasonable as the mysterious blonde "S" whom Jonathan falls for.

THE BAD: There is absolutely nothing new here that you haven't already seen in some other guise elsewhere to the point where you can guess exactly how it will end; unfortunately that makes the film boring and un-thrilling. It's not helped by some rather average camerawork; much like a television show, all the visuals are rather close-in to the action, hardly ever taking advantage of the big screen they had to fill (what's with all the shaky camerawork these days - are all these filmmakers inspired by Paul Greengrass?). Ewan McGregor, despite being a strong actor and managing to do extremely well in this film has unfortunately got a rather pathetic role to play. It might have looked good on paper but in reality it's quite silly; maybe we live in a world where it's hard to imagine being duped the way he is in this film, or even how he falls in love with "S" just by bumping in to her on the subway one night. It just didn't work for me. And Michelle Williams? As lovely as she is, I don't believe she was the right person for this part. All of these problems obviously link back to the filmmakers, leaving a film which smacks of a 'training run' for a first-timer wanting to get their feet wet, where everything is by the numbers and nothing interesting or new is imparted.

RATING: 6.5/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net