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Deceptive duo >> Twins Jonas and Josh Pate keep audiences guessing with Deceiver by MATTHEW HAYS
Set in their hometown of Charleston, S.C., Deceiver has Tim Roth as an epileptic murder suspect who's interrogated by cops after being hooked up to a polygraph machine. The cops, perfectly played by Chris Penn and Michael Rooker, try to wear down Roth, who is wealthy and unremorseful about his apparent crime. As the film progresses, we learn through flashbacks about Roth's relationship with the murdered prostitute (Renee Zellweger) and learn the details of her fate. As with The Usual Suspects, nothing is as it seems, and the Pate twins exhibit a talent at toying with audience expectations throughout Deceiver. For Jonas, who wrote the first draft of the film, the inspiration came after he auditioned for a game show. "I had a friend who was involved with producing the pilot for a game show. I was brought in as a guinea pig; it was kind of like Tell the Truth, where you're told a lie and the other contestants have to figure it out, and the way they verified it was with a polygraph test, which was pretty extreme. It just seemed so odd to me that this bucket of bolts would be able to ferret out the truth from somebody's head." Though polygraph tests have fallen out of favour because they've been proven fallible, Jonas says they're still right most of the time. "If you have a really good polygraphist and an average person on the street, it's really remarkably accurate. It's not fail-safe, sure, but if I was a bettin' man, I wouldn't bet against it." Thus the angst-filled scenes of interrogation cut between Roth, Penn, Rooker and shots of the polygraph, its needles wildly scratching across a paper printout. Though Deceiver is their first directorial collaboration, the Jonas twins have worked together before. In 1994 they co-wrote The Grave (Jonas directed) which gained favourable notices at Sundance. The two have developed a tag-team writing and directing style which manages to leave any unhealthy sibling rivalry well outside their relationship. "Writing is something that's difficult to do if you're both at the keyboard at once," says Jonas. "Writing is enjoyable. It's once the writing has been done and you're waiting for the money to drop that's the most annoying." For such a young filmmaking team, Deceiver is populated with a highly impressive cast. As well as Roth, Zellweger, Penn and Rooker, Rosanna Arquette makes an appearance and the film also features a star turn by Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn. Josh says working with such a seasoned cast was occasionally daunting, but reports that being upfront about one's humble status is the way to proceed. "We don't profess to know everything about filmmaking. When we look at David Lynch films, for example, and witness details like the attention to background lighting, those are things that take time to master. If we don't know about something, we just say, 'We don't know.' We've learned a tremendous amount from those we've worked with. I think people really want to pass on the craft." Deceiver opens on Friday, Feb. 6
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"No, right now my hair's a bit longer than Jonas's," says Josh Pate, answering the inevitable do-you-two-ever-get-mixed-up-on-the-set twin question. "I've grown it out in a lame effort to distinguish ourselves." While the two may look similar, the 27-year-old writing and directing team are making a distinctive mark with their first directing/writing collaboration, Deceiver.