Diagonaldi Very well executed

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Deceiver is classic 90's noir, with a dash of trashiness and a unique cast all suited to the bottom feeding material. It trips along in the same gutter as stuff like Basic Instinct, another film that is simultaneously aware and smugly indifferent to the fact that it's scummy stuff. Almost every character is a reprehensible, unlikable piece of work, save for one surprise cameo. I may have just put you off the film, and to many who don't see this type of thing as your cup of tea, please avoid it. But to those like me who appreciate a nice bit of grimy fun, well this is your ticket. Tim Roth plays Wailand, a wealthy and arrogent young heir to a textile mill. He is under suspicion for the brutal murder of a prostitute (Renee Zellweger) who was found in a park, cut in half. The two detectives who are tasked with hassling him seem almost as dodgy as he is, and when you look at the edgy character actors who play them it's easy to see why. Detective Braxton (Chris Penn) is buried in gambling debt, owing a tidy sum to nasty loan shark Mook (Ellen Burstyn). Detective Kennesaw (An explosive Michael Rooker) is a rage fuelled whacko who is furious at his wife (Rosanna Arquette) for having affairs on him. Wailand has both the cunning nature to see this weaknesses in both of them, and the money to do something about it. This makes the detective's job very hard, being stymied by their quarry every step of the way. Wailand also has mental issues including blackouts and strange episodes of personality alteration that Roth takes full advantage of in the scenery chewing department. It's pseudo psychological mumbo jumbo that the actors play straight faced for a thriller that's quite the endearing little flick. Rooker stands out with his trademark volatility that will put anyone's nerves up to defcon 4. Roth has a ratty, evil looking face. Nothing against the dude, he just looks like he'd slit your throat in your sleep for a dollar. He's great as suspicious characters, and has fun here being the wild card. Penn is his usual huff and puff self. Character actor Michael Parks has an awesome cameo as a psychiatrist with a monologue that almost lets the film wade out of cheese territory. Great cast, great flick.

donaldking This has hints of Abel Ferrara about it (esp. the welcome appearance of the late and lamented Chris Penn from Ferrara's 'The Funeral.') I've seen this twice now, and am still not quite sure who really murdered Elizabeth. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, but there's a sense here in which style predominates a bit too strongly over substance. Michael Rooker & Tim Roth overact a bit - so the steadying presence of Chris Penn is helpful here. I'd liked to have known more about Roth's upbringing and so forth than we're granted. The scenes of him with his parents & friends are some of the best - all that baloney with lie detectors in dimly lit rooms becomes a bit dreary after a while.Nice to see 1) Michael Parks (one of the nastiest villains in Twin Peaks) - here confirming one's idea that psychiatrists and psychologists are easily more strange and conflicted than their patients, and 2) Mark Damon - most famous in American cinema from Roger Corman's Fall of the House of Usher way back in 1960! Worth an outing if you should ever get bored with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but hardly worth all the effort you need to expend in an attempt to 'work out the story.' (By the way, are all American police really like this?)

celr First of all, this is not really a mystery thriller, it's more of an opportunity for the actors to chew the scenery. The plot makes no sense and the ending even less. It is pretentious in the extreme. Evidently the writers thought they were exploring the depths of the human soul and how people deceive themselves and others. Actually it's a mess. The three main characters, the suspect (Tim Roth) and the two cops are rotten to the core; in fact every character in this movie is rotten except for the prostitute/victim (Zellweger) who's an amiable dunce.A young woman has been murdered. The suspect is hooked to a lie detector and begins a game of psychological cat and mouse, the premise of which is so bogus it's impossible to sustain interest. All three, suspect and two cops, are lying and covering up unsavory parts of their lives. I got the feeling that the script was designed by postmodernists who don't believe there is any reality or any truth. This makes for terrible storytelling because if there's no reality as a reference point, there is absolutely no interest in the outcome. This is "Last Year at Marianbad" disguised as thriller.The ending doesn't make any sense because we are never told who actually committed the murder. We're given a brief scene, about five seconds, at the very end which suggests that the suspect has in fact faked his death and is revived, but that is too little to be sure of anything. How could that happen? Or was that just another flashback? Since everything seems to take place in an alternate surrealistic universe, where nothing makes sense anyway, then the only thought we are left with is: "Who cares?"

Straightforward I love a movie that will capture me from the beginning and never let go. This movie was like that for me. This is the movie that made me a fan of TIM ROTH. He is fascinating to watch, and the character he plays is fascinating to watch.The movie goes into the psychology of each of the lead players, and I found myself collecting ever more answers -- with always a few more questions with each answer.It's not one of those kinds of films that tries to make sure you know the answer to anything -- yet lets you see most everything -- and still find yourself wondering. It's got little action, yet is continually stimulating and thought-provoking, interesting and fun to watch.I've seen this movie more than once and it's one of those rare films I know I will enjoy watching again and again -- and I think that every time I watch it I have new answers -- and new questions. Anyone interested in psychology will love this film. The acting are all excellent, the cinematography wonderfully mood-setting, the direction superb. I gave it 10 stars.