There will be crud

>>Despite Ewan McGregor, sexy thriller
Deception is just plain awful

ONE-NIGHT BLAND: Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor

by MATTHEW HAYS

There was an old line from the wonderful world of thespians that stuck with me. If an actor was working, they were known within the milieu as a “walking miracle.” Work is so sparse for starving actors, it’s common knowledge that they’ll take on just about anything to stay busy.

But honestly, can an actor as admired as Ewan McGregor really be this hard up? In Deception, he’s baited and trapped by a double-crossing crook (Hugh Jackman) who pretends to be a high-flying Manhattan powerbroker. Jackman introduces McGregor to a naughty secret society, where hot chicks call men for anonymous encounters. The hook? You can’t follow up—these are strictly one-night stands with no intimacy allowed (heterosexuals make this look so complicated—honestly, it doesn’t have to be).

Sure enough, McGregor finds one young blonde tramp (Michelle Williams) intriguing. But then, as the film noir screenplay template dictates, a babe McGregor bedded earlier turns up dead and then blackmail (gasp!) sets in. McGregor must use his insider connections to shuffle millions in corporate cash to Jackman’s off-shore account, or Williams will get iced.

If Deception is sounding entirely onerous, then I’m describing it perfectly. How on Earth a screenplay this obvious, this tedious, this profoundly dreary got green-lit is almost as unbelievable as any of its major plot points. Its who’s-really-screwing-over-who premise was stale a decade ago. And while I recognize that suspension of disbelief is a mysterious—and entirely subjective—thing, there is a limit.

Hitchcock notoriously disdained people he referred to as “plausibles,” those who couldn’t buy a film’s fictional storyline because things didn’t entirely make sense. He often used to throw ludicrous twists into films, as if to taunt audiences who were too hooked on some kind of onscreen mathematical logic, something that struck Hitch as downright boring.

But he was a very, very clever filmmaker, and that’s something that simply can’t be said for the people behind Deception, who should consider a career switch and try installing rugs or something (no offence to rug installers, I’m sure you’re very nice people). Come to think of it, Deception did muster up a unique strain of suspense as it droned on: I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Deception opens this
Friday, April 25

>> Movie Listings