Engaño

The trailer of this movie looked interesting.

The story is about an accountant Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) who meets Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) – who in turn introduces Wyatt to a secret sex club. Wyatt falls in love with one of his acquaintances S (Michelle Williams) and gets involved in a blackmail by Jonathan who wants Wyatt to transfer a huge sum from a few bank account to Spain. Wyatt does that. Jonathan plants a bomb and kills Wyatt. I will leave the story here and not play spoilt sports.

The story starts with a psychological angle, moves to sexual contours, deceive, and blackmail. The movie moves slowly throughout, gains maximum interest in the deceiving part – holds your attention, but remaining times – it is just a usual dull affair.

Both Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor look great and act well. But the style of narration does not build up that interest to make a great cinema of a good story like this.

First time director Marcel Langenegger does a decent job in delivering a visually good cinema – good closeups, good acting, good music, good movements of camera – I think he has a good eye for making better movies.

I think there is a problem with the scripting of the movie. It takes the first 40 minutes to build the story, and gives 10 minutes of interest and falls back to a mundane thriller.

My rating started from 4.5 at the beginning of the movie, increased to 6.5 when it reached the deceive part, but pulmetted down to 5 by the end of the movie.

(Star 4.75 out of 10)

Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) is shy Auditor/Accountant who moves from office to office in New York City, working away by himself, crunching numbers, solving problems. His life is dull and his social life is even worse. One night while working late a smooth talking well dressed lawyer named Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) introduces himself to Jonathan, Wyatt offers Jonathan a certain green cigarette and the two quickly establish a friendship and begin to socialize with one another and soon enough, Jonathan is involved in a secret sex club.

Deception is a movie where it attempts to bring back the dying erotic thriller genre and to some degree it works, the concept of this sex club amongst Manhattans elite is intriguing and watching Jonathan gain confidence in himself and doing things he thought he never would makes for quite a watch. The problem is though is that the story/screenplay is paper thin, you will know the plot twists well before they happen and you will question some of the poor decision making and silliness during the film. It's disappointing that the story is weak because the cast is strong and the film is well made. Deception looks sleek and beautiful, the cinematography by the legendary Dante Spinotte is a must see on its own, New York City has never looked any sexier than it does in this film, set decoration is also fantastic and all that is accompanied by an engrossing sound track which fits in perfectly with the film. The actors do a fine job with what they have to work with but again it makes you wonder how good this movie could have been with a better screenplay. I wouldn't quite say Deception is a must see but it's definitely a decent watch on a quiet night in.

Jonathan McQuarry, is an accountant who strikes up a friendship with a lawyer called Wyatt Bose. After accidentally swapping phones, McQuarry starts getting calls from women who are part of a group of people who meet purely for casual sexual encounters. During one of these, McQuarry meets a blonde woman whom he becomes close to. When he's attacked and she disappears, he discovers more going on than he realized....

From the above plot description some people can figure out where the story is heading. I for one did. It's a sad fact that the script written by Mark Bomback holds no surprises at all. It also doesn't help that there are plot holes that aren't explained or dealt with. The direction by Marcel Langenegger is okay, but he doesn't add any tension into the movie.

What does save the movie are the three main performances. Michelle Williams is suitably enigmatic as the girl involved, Hugh Jackman as Wyatt Bose brings charm and charisma to the part, and Ewan McGregor as Jonathan McQuarry convinces as the straight, lonely accountant seduced into the events played out.

However the performances alone can't save the movie from being a disappointing, predictable thriller.

The thriller genre has been well explored and perfected over decades of cinema. While some familiar elements and conventions are to be expected in a new release, you would expect, at the very least, that a new entry tops the previous ones.

And sadly, Deception does not. The movie almost feels like a remake of Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence. A movie that was made almost twenty years ago and features two main characters that are carbon copies of those of McGregor and Jackman, only they were played respectively by James Spader and Rob Lowe.

Whatever "twists" are found in Deception, you see them coming from a mile and they fall flat. The acting? Everybody seems to be cashing his check. One-dimensional characters and an aimless plot make for a boring two hours. Even the "list" subplot feels tacked on and doesn't even provide any enjoyment, nor does it add anything to the film.

The photography is amazing but this is truly a poor Hollywood movie and one that you will be better off passing on, unless you are a die-hard fan of the genre or one of the main actors featured. All in all, a tremendous waste of talent and resources due to a crappy script.

The writing and direction here are solid, but unspectacular, and if that were all there was, the movie, too, would be unspectacular. But what drives the entire endeavor is the acting. Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor are among that small group of actors who never give a bad performance, and that's certainly the case here. Michelle Williams, though, is another matter altogether: she is SO good, and SO deep, and SO nuanced, that she rises above what she had been in the past and simply makes this movie her own. Hers is one of those performances (there are two scenes where she delivers voluminous messages simply by a look, without a single word) that make you wholly reevaluate the actor's skill and intelligence; at least, it did that for me: I changed my opinion of her and her abilities, and I won't be able to look at her again in the way I had before. And I like experiencing that, so I like the movie much more for that fact. If you're a Michelle Williams fan, you really HAVE to see this film.