Movie nonsense can be fun, but “Deception” even fails to generate the appeal of trash. It’s too stark and serious for that.
It begins with a completely unbelievable scene in which two guys in expensive suits share a joint and a laugh together. Wyatt (Hugh Jackman), a sleek wheeler-dealer, approaches nebbishy accountant Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) with an unexpected offer of friendship.
The movie is wrong from this scene onward. They laugh a little too hard and they say a little too much, just like people in TV commercials. And making commercials is something that director Marcel Langenegger has some experience in, not surprisingly.
Wyatt is supercool and extroverted, Jonathan is a mouse. But an accidental exchange of cell phones leads Jonathan into a weird underworld of sex.
It seems he has tapped into a clandestine club in which people call each other for quickies, without exchanging names or other information. Although inexperienced in most things, he learns the rules right away.
There is the possibility of an interesting plot springing from this set-up, but curiously, the sex club is just a blind alley. Jonathan’s trouble comes when he meets a woman (Michelle Williams) he really, really likes.
No spoilers from here, but it’s not difficult to guess where the movie is going. Mark Bomback’s script wants to join the ranks of Sinister Male Buddy movies that stretches back to “Strangers on a Train.” But the holes are so huge you could run a locomotive through them.
For one thing, the sex-club angle turns out to be completely unnecessary to the actual gimmick; the plot could have used an accidental meeting for the same purpose. Mind you, Jonathan’s bedmates constitute an arresting gallery of actresses, including Maggie Q, Natasha Hentsridge and Charlotte Rampling (who, by being a good 25 years older than Ewan McGregor, gives a convincing argument on behalf of older women).
Both McGregor and Hugh Jackman (who also co-produced) come off poorly, and everybody’s badly photographed — the mole on McGregor’s forehead practically has a co-starring role in this thing.
But they probably never had a chance; nothing in this movie resembles human behavior. Or at least not humans you would ever want to run across.
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