Deception

I am not sure when a movie goes through a name change every few months that it spells good things for the movie. At first this was called The Tourist then it became The List and about two months before the release they finally settled on the name Deception. Perhaps it is not indicative of how the movie will turn out, but it did not appear to be a good sign for me. What was a good sign was that Hugh Jackman liked the script so much he wanted to produce the movie and on the big screen he hadn't made a majorly bad movie since Van Helsing. I have a kind of affinity for bad erotic thrillers that dates back to my days of renting direct to video movies in hopes of finding something so awful and juicy that I could not help but love it.

Jonathon McQuarrey(Ewan McGregor) is a by the numbers accountant with a dull existence and no friends. One night while doing an audit for a big law firm, a big wig lawyer Wyatt Bose(Jackman) introduces himself, they smoke weed, chat and become fast friends. Bose is a funny, cocky and personable person; he is everything McQuarrey is not. An accidental phone switch by the two men right as Bose is heading to London, leaves McQuarrey with Bose's phone and suddenly a whole world opens up to him. He is fielding calls from women asking "Are you free tonight." Quickly he cannot resist taking the calls and finds himself in the middle of a sex club, or "The List." One night he meets a woman he actually like a and they don't have sex; they just talk. They meet again the next night and while McQuarrey leaves the hotel room to get ice, she goes missing and he gets knocked out. It does not take long before Bose is seen again and this time that fun loving person is gone and in his place is a crazy, money hungry nut job. He says he has the girl kidnapped and McQuarrey can get her back if he transfers 20 million dollars from some big bank. Who is who? What is what? Oh snap, who is dead, who is alive?

If you cannot figure out this movie within the first 15 minutes, I would suggest you never open a detective business. Whether you had plans to do so or not, just don't do it. Deception telegraphs every twist and turn to the point where you have it figured out so early. None of that would matter to me if the movie had been able to maintain a level of stimulating interest, but it did not. The script is weak, the performances are just as weak and it leaves me curious as to what Hugh Jackman saw in this to begin with. As erotic thrillers go this one is luke-warm, with only one even remotely hot scene, but it is just a tease and we spend the rest of the movie hoping for something to get hot again, only to be disappointed. It could have been salvaged by an interesting ending, but sadly, it goes exactly where you expect it to go. You hope to see Ewan's character finally nut up and make a bold decision but the decisions he makes start out bold, but never materialize into anything remotely interesting. There are 2 false endings and the actual ending seemed tacked on specifically because the director felt like the happy ending was what was needed in this mostly gloomy movie.

Final Grade: D-