by Karyn L. Beach

Dismayed. Disappointed. Deceived. Walking out of Deception, I felt all of those things and more. I wasn’t expecting an Academy Award winner; but, I was expecting something more than this hot mess of a movie.

Ewan McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, an isolated accountant, in the usual stereotype – buttoned-down, friendless, and boring. While performing an audit at a law firm, he meets Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) – who, in the usual evil attorney stereotype, is charming, beguiling and intriguing. Before you know it the two are best buds, smoking pot together in the board room and playing tennis doubles with a couple of hot chicks.  Pretty soon, our alluring attorney is introducing our pent-up accountant to The List – a group of impossibly good-looking and wildly successful people who hook up at swanky New York hotels for casual no-strings, no-names, sex.

Things get complicated when Jonathan meets a woman simply known as ‘S’ (Michelle Williams), a woman he first saw weeks before on the subway. He breaks all the rules and after two meetings, he’s smitten. Then, she turns up missing. With no name or real information to go on, what’s a poor accountant to do? Only that’s just the beginning of the deception.

The problem I have with ‘sexy thrillers’ is that most either lack sex or thrills. There is sex in Deception; but all of it is pretty lame, completely lacking any steaminess or sexiness.

And thrills? Puh-leeze. Each supposedly subtle hint hits you over the head like a sledgehammer. “Look, he picked up the wrong phone!” And so it goes all the way through the movie. See Hugh Jackman?  He’s so charming – sinisterly charming. And see Ewan McGregor? He has glasses and slicked back hair! He’s so innocent and boring.

While the cliché-ridden script didn’t give them much to work with, none of the principals brought anything to their roles. McGregor succeeded in being boring but not much more. Jackman wasn’t evil. And, Williams had about as much appeal as a store-front mannequin.

If that weren’t bad enough, this silly and not sexy thriller got more and more preposterous as it went along. Like the Energizer Bunny on downers, it kept going and going and going and losing steam all the way around.  At one point, I was tempted to jump to my feet and shout, “Dear God! Make it stop!!”

Deception left me feeling duped, defrauded and dumbfounded. And l was far from alone. I walked out with several people who were just as amazed as I was at the utter stupidity of the whole affair.  Everyone involved in this sorry enterprise should be embarrassed and ashamed.