MOVIE Review
Deception, Starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams. Directed by Marcel Langenegger.
KONG RITHDEE
Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor in a scene from Deception. |
Accountants are corporate super-nerds, socially awkward and sexually repressed. At least according to the new thriller Deception they are.
"I love the order and symmetry of numbers," says Jonathan, an auditor sent to inspect the books at a Manhattan law firm.
Played by Ewan McGregor, Jonathan is so green and innocent that you wouldn't be able to resist the itch to corrupt him, first by rolling him a joint, then taking him to a lap-dancing bar, then inducting him into a sex club where he enjoy nameless trysts with beautiful women. The sexless accountant licks his lips (repeatedly) and jumps in like a hungry monkey into a banana store.
But of course it's all deception. The set-up is engineered by Wyatt Bosse, who claims to be an attorney in the company Jonathan is working for, and played with such sleek roguery by Hugh Jackman. Wyatt is the handsome devil, a man who proudly does men's stuff, and a natural seducer who soon gets Jonathan under his spell.
Deception, written by Mark Bomback and directed by Marcel Langenegger, also gets us hooked with its engrossing first act before evaporating into a weak, tedious thriller involving Jonathan's sexual rendezvous and the disappearance of a blonde woman. The movie relies on a noirish cocktail of sex, which is monotonous, and suspense, which fails to capitalise on the world of corporate secrecy.
Jackman is compelling to watch, more so than his turn as the metal-clawed Wolverine, but he doesn't have the cool abandon of those crooks from Billy Wilder's films; he comes across like a second-class Bond villain here. McGregor counterpoints him with the geeky clumsiness - he's an innocent fool - but again, Jonathan's transformation in the final act requires a great leap of faith equivalent to that of an Olympic long jumper. What the movie ignores the most is Michelle Williams, who plays the anonymous blonde Jonathan falls for. Her kittenish persona, though not as instinctively seductive as, say, Lauren Bacall in her heyday, adds mystery and a shot of feminine intrigue to the setup. But she's quickly reduced to a mere prop, and, so typical of a movie that focuses on men and especially a male audience, an object of manipulation and desire.
Deception has the feel of an early 1990s flick, with its vague reference to how the pressure of corporate employment can dilute a person's identity. Nothing comes across as fresh or surprising here, and this deception hardly has any deeper layers for us to dig for.
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