There are suspense thrillers that ask you to buy into one or two things -- loose ends, convenient coincidences, characters that act out-of-character.
And then there are movies such as Deception where you figuratively go broke buying into nonsense -- starting, but certainly not ending, with Ewan McGregor's casting as an all-but-virginal nerd accountant who's a gullible mark for a homicidal conman (Hugh Jackman).
Hey, if a pair of horn-rimmed glasses can turn Clark Kent into Superman, they can turn an edgy movie bad-boy into Nerdlinger.
In his feature debut, career commercial director Marcel Langenegger certainly shows he knows how to paint a noir, paranoid picture. The trouble begins when you start to think about the events onscreen (the movie was written by Live Free Or Die Hard writer Mark Bomback, who didn't have to worry about people thinking during that movie).
As the movie begins, we meet Jonathan McQuarrie (McGregor) diligently working late at night in the office boardroom of a law firm.
Turns out he's an auditor who goes from company to company making sure books balance. The staff don't want to know him and the execs just want him to finish up and get out without making waves.
Out of nowhere in this empty office walks arrogant three-piece suited Wyatt Bose (Jackman), ostensibly one of the firm's attorneys, who makes small talk with McQuarrie and offers to share a joint with him. As things unfurl, it turns out if he'd refused the toke, the movie would be over.
Very early in the movie, it's indicated to the audience (but not to Jonathan) that Wyatt isn't who he says he is. Wyatt and Jonathan become new best friends, and during one social meeting, they "accidentally" walk away with each other's cellphones.
Most people in this situation would put the phone away until they see the guy again and give it back. If Jonathan does this, the movie is over.
No, Jonathan starts answering Wyatt's calls and soon finds himself part of a high-end "sex club" for businesspeople -- including women executives who all look like supermodels.
One of them (Michelle Williams) identifies herself only by the initial "S." He falls for her, she disappears in the middle of a tryst, and the plot thickens.
Jackman is easy to buy as a predator, but not so easy to buy as someone you'd trust. But it's Jonathan who's all over the place. One minute, he's a milquetoast, the next he's following a whim to meet a strange woman at a hotel. He's completely intimidated by Wyatt, then he goes alpha male on us, coolly investigating him and plotting to turn the tables. The entire time, he's in contact with a police detective named Russo (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and could sensibly come clean to her at various points in the movie.
But then the movie would be over.
He is, in short, a pretty unpredictable character for someone whose "predictability" is key to the villain's carefully laid plan. As it is, all the opportunities to nip this caper in the bud are for naught, and predictable double-cross piles on predictable double-cross, leading to a conclusion so shocking, you could have knocked me over with a wrecking ball.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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