Deception: Critic Reviews

Everything is wrong pretty much from the start of this misbegotten adventure in Adrian Lyne territory, including but not limited to the strained mind games that drive the plot, and the tentative New York accents on the actors from Australia and Scotland.

A would-be erotic thriller with no heat and zero chills, Deception has the kind of glassy, glossy sheen and risible story that mean to suggest Basic Instinct but instead invoke lesser laughers like Jade and Sliver.

It is about as erotic as a midweek National Express coach journey to Hitchin.

Despite a cast that includes double-crossers Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams caught in the middle, the film is a yawn.

Deception is another example of when genre-fication (the forcing of otherwise intriguing stories into the straitjackets of horror, thriller or other genres) reduces our entertainment to head-shaking banality.

Calling your terrible crime thriller Deception is like naming your bad cooking movie Food -- an advertisement for laziness.

Every actor has a few titles on his resume that he'd love to forget. So should you ever have the opportunity to meet Deception stars Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, we highly recommend you pretend this movie was never made.

Deception recalls the fantasies of Showtime's soft-core series Red Shoe Diaries. It's often tastefully laughable.

What can compare with the white-knuckle suspense of uploading a file?

As thriller storytelling, however, Deception cannot get enough of the obvious. Each major story revelation is so flagrantly telegraphed, when the revelations arrive they're more like fax confirmation sheets of what already came through.

You don't have to be a genius to find yourself several steps ahead of this helpfully titled mystery thriller.

Simultanously silly and sleep-inducing.

The plot comes together in Madrid in a whirl of multimillion-dollar swindles and gunplay, and for all its contrived surprises, it has the feel of a well-designed mousetrap snapping shut.

Deception is one of those films that leave you feeling vaguely dirty and wholly unsatisfied, a distasteful and wholly unbelievable mix of soft porn and obvious duplicity that holds not one ounce of emotional truth.

Deception is kind of like the Oscars. Both plod lamely at the beginning, milking inane dialogue, before trying to squeeze far too much into the last little bit.

A thin thriller, burdened by clunky dialogue and prone to telegraphing its twists.

Is there anything more boring than watching $20 million being electronically trans ferred to an offshore bank account? Maybe it's someone repeatedly barking 'You have no idea what I'm capable of!' into a cellphone.

Never less than watchable.

The inevitable absurdities and coincidences of the plot are easy enough to accept along the way, except perhaps for the sex club, which is just a little too absurd to function as a plot device.

An accountant's sex fantasy, Deception is the story of an audit gone deliciously bad.

To his credit, Langenegger keeps things relatively simple instead of resorting to lots of fast cutting and fancy camera angles. To his detriment, the picture he has made barely moves at all.

There's not a twist in this flimsy and moth-eaten plot that isn't both contrived and transparent and not a character who hasn't been hopelessly manipulated by the needs of the narrative.

Deception will deceive very few viewers as an all-too-obvious setup leads to a foregone conclusion featuring forgettable characters.

Deception collapses into such a ridiculous pile of plot twists and double crosses, that there's nothing pleasurable about it -- guilty or otherwise. It tries to deceive us into thinking it makes sense.

Deception would be laughably bad if it weren't so rotely inert.