STUDIO: Fox
RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2008
STARRING: Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Natasha Henstridge, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Charlotte Rampling, Maggie Q, Rachael Taylor, and Michelle Williams
WRITTEN BY: Mark Bomback
DIRECTED BY: Marcel Langenegger
GENRE: Thriller
RATING: R

Up until the end of last week, Fox's latest thriller, Deception, was going to be held from critics and released onto an unsuspecting audience without reviews. At the last minute, plans changed and a screening was scheduled, which raised the question - could Deception actually be a well-made, adult thriller that someone initially confused with the garbage that has littered the suspense genre over the last two years? Could Ewan McGregor break the curse of Lucas that has somehow turned him from one of the most vital actors of his generation into a post-Jedi Mark Hamill? Could we FINALLY have an intelligent thriller about sexuality and masculinity, without silliness or Sharon Stone crotch shots? After seeing Deception, the only praise we could possibly give Fox is that, by having a critics’ screening, at least they were being honest enough with their audience to warn them of the cliched, predictable dreck that’s advertising itself as an edge-of-your-seat thriller. It's almost as if someone involved let the cat out of the bag figuring that angry critics are certainly better for your career than angry, pissed-off fans. (Hugh, I'm looking at you.) We can only be thankful that the title didn't refer to the studio, and that this stinker wasn't held from advance reviews.

In the world of Deception, a horribly miscast and dull McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, a lonely accountant for high-profile law firms. He spends most of his nights in conference rooms and admits to having been with only four women in his entire life. He makes this confession to his new playboy friend, an attorney named Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman), who works at one of the firms he's auditing. Wyatt and Jonathan become buddies and start playing tennis, having lunch in the park, and talking about the art of seducing women. After lunch one day, Jonathan mistakenly grabs Wyatt's cell phone and, when he receives a call that night asking him "Are you free tonight?", he decides to check out the voice on the other end of the line (which happens to belong to Natasha Henstridge). Jonathan falls head-first into a sex club, where busy people set up one-night stands with no questions and usually no names. While Wyatt is off in London on business, Jonathan goes sex-crazy, until he ends up answering the call of a girl he's seen before, a stunner known only as “S” (Michelle Williams). The lonely accountant falls for the gorgeous blonde who’s into anonymous sex (and who can blame him?), and yet it never crosses his mind that it might all be a set-up. Guess what? Wyatt's a bad guy (and anyone who's ever seen a thriller will see that coming a mile away), and, with gullible old Jonathan along for the ride, he’s able to put a ridiculously elaborate plan into motion to get Jonathan to steal him a whole lot of money.

Deception is just another in a long line of movies that blatantly insult the intelligence of their audience with ridiculously elaborate and yet shockingly predictable Byzantine plots. Wyatt's plan is SO preposterous and full of plot holes that the only fun you'll have on the way out of the theater is trying to figure out which one's your favorite (it's tough to choose but mine involves the villain putting his entire plan and where he'll be after it goes through down on a piece of paper without any concern that someone might actually show it to a cop.) Debut director Marcel Langenegger and writer Mark Bomback (who has now somehow brought two ridiculously flawed screenplays to the big screen with this and Godsend to his credit) haven't just made a cliched, derivative thriller, but, much worse, they've made a movie that is constantly hinting at what it could have been and then slapping it down.

And it's a visual mess too. Cinematographer Dante Spinotti used to rule his craft with films like L.A. Confidential and The Insider, but he's been on a bad streak lately (After the Sunset, The X-Men: The Last Stand) and Deception is, quite simply, one of the worst looking movies of the year. Spinotti and Langenegger shoot everything in extreme close-up, which is kind to the increasingly gorgeous Michelle Williams, but not-so-kind to Ewan McGregor's moles. Which gets us to one of the most disconcerting issues surrounding Deception - the career trajectory of Ewan McGregor. What the bloody hell happened here? Where is the vital, young man who set celluloid on fire in Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge? How has he turned into a bookworm unafraid to even call a sex line? And, unconvincingly, at that. The Island, Stay, Miss Potter, Cassandra's Dream, and, now, Deception mark his last five credits - it's time for a career intervention for this talented, once-promising star.

The most frustrating thing about Deception is that, even though so little of it is enjoyable, there are glimpses of things worth recommending. Hugh Jackman remains a more interesting actor than his career choices have displayed and actually isn't half-bad in the film, but Williams completely steals the movie in every one of her scenes as a stunning femme fatale. She's really developed from an interesting actress to someone who has star power to burn. She holds the camera with a screen presence as alive as any actress in her generation. And the idea - that a bookworm could dive into a world of sex clubs and anonymous encounters with gorgeous strangers without realizing what he's gotten himself into - isn't a bad one. But McGregor, Spinotti, Langenegger, and, most of all, Bomback let Jackman and Williams down at every turn. After a while, it becomes clear that the title refers to not what’s happening on-screen or even what the producers are trying to do to the audience, but rather what trickery was employed on two talented actors - Jackman and Williams - to get them to sign onto this clunker.