Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Edwin
The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Spikeopath
Deception is directed by Marcel Langenegger and written by Mark Bomback. It stars Ewen McGregor, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams. Music is by Ramin Djawadi and cinematography by Dante Spinotti.Jonathan McQuarry (McGregor) is a timid New York accountant who whilst working late one night meets Wyatt Bose (Jackman). Bose is the complete opposite to McQuarry, he's highly sexed, confident and supremely cool. So when a mix up with the pair's mobile phones introduces McQuarry to an exclusive sex group, he's spun into a world completely alien to him.If you have watched a lot of film noir, both classic era and neo, Deception will come off as irritatingly stale. What we have here is very much a case of the title revealing far too much! You would hope that with the makers going for broke with such a title then they would have the nous to fill out the story with surprises, take us and the principal characters down some twisty streets, not so, sadly. Within ten minutes you catch on to what is happening, the writing so poor as to not cleverly challenge the narrative drive. It could maybe be argued that McQuarry's journey, and how the character evolves, is something of a veer from the noir norm? But it has no dramatic worth and renders the finale as dull (the alternate ending is even worse).It's not a total wash out as such, the cast are engaging in their roles, good actors straining to make a weak screenplay work, while cameos from Natasha Henstridge, Charlotte Rampling and Maggie Q impact to come off as better than novelty value. And then there's Spinotti's (Manhunter, L.A. Confidential, Heat) cinematography, the best character in the play. His nighttime city scapes are electric, his colour lenses beautiful (golds and blues are poetic), his work deserves a better film. But that's about it, leaving us with a shallow noir cover version that's in search of its own identity. For those not familiar with the noir form, then this is just about average enough for a look see. For noir fans, though, it's neither erotic or thrilling and as unadventurous as it gets. 5/10
Robert J. Maxwell
This didn't get exceptional reviews but I kind of enjoyed most of it. It was mostly towards the end when the winces of disbelief appeared.It's a suspense story in which naive, dumb, prosperous burgher Ewan McGregor is blackmailed by smiling, psychopathic, murdering Hugh Jackman and sultry but beef-brained Michelle Williams.I don't think I'll give away much of the plot because it's twisted and at the end it explodes into a multitude of flapdoodles.I found the acting to be pretty good. McGregor is entirely believable as the harmless Wall Street. Jackman is strapped into the role of the smiling evildoer and there's not much that he can do with it. Williams is convincing. Lisa Gay Hamilton, an unimpressive physical presence, brings life to the role of the necessary detective. The direction is functional and efficient, without fireworks.However, the plot thins. You have to believe, for instance, that a man and a hooker who have just met are still able to fall so deeply in love that they're willing to kill for one another.You have to believe that a man in a foreign country, without a job or any other source of income, could walk away from twenty million dollars of mob money that no one would miss anyway. I mean, really -- would you?
SnoopyStyle
Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) is a shy and lonely auditor moving from one office to the next. Late one night, he is befriended by charismatic Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman). They get their phones switched and Jonathan gets a call from a mysterious woman (Natasha Henstridge). He spends the night together with her. Next he meets an older woman (Charlotte Rampling) who explains the sex club rules. The next woman (Michelle Williams) is someone he has seen before and he's in love with her, believing her name starts with S. The next time they meet in a hotel. He's knocked out and S disappears. The blood stain is gone and he calls the police. Detective J. Russo (Lisa Gay Hamilton) has nothing to go on. He discovers that Wyatt is a fiction and he's blackmailed into stealing money from dirty accounts in the company. He gets a call from Tina (Maggie Q). She knows Wyatt as Jamie Getz who possibly killed investment banker Rudolph Holloway.There is one moment when this movie goes from intriguing to improbable. McQuarry picks up the phone and Russo's card. I kept thinking that he should call the cops and I was actually impressed that the movie would do exactly that. Instead of calling Russo, he impersonates Russo to get information from the cops. It's mind-boggling. Wyatt's threats boil down to hurting S but for all McQuarry knows, she's part of his scheme. So he does something illegal and easily trackable to save a woman he barely knows. Michelle Williams is gorgeous but I can't buy that she's that intoxicating. Nobody is Helen of Troy and nobody is that dumb. The plan is completely unlikely to work but the movie forces it to work. The final twist tries to salvage the movie by doubling down but it doesn't work. It's nice to see these actors but this is all about the plot points.
setlaw
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.
