Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
As a corporate auditor who works in a number of different offices, Jonathan McQuarry wanders without an anchor among New York's power brokers. A chance meeting with charismatic lawyer Wyatt Bose leads to Jonathan's introduction to The List, an underground sex club. Jonathan begins an affair with a woman known only as S, who introduces Jonathan to a world of treachery and murder.
Deception (2008) is a glossy but hollow thriller that squanders a promising setup. The plot starts intriguingly with the underground sex club premise but devolves into increasingly predictable twists and a contrived heist narrative that feels assembled from genre leftovers. The acting is competent — Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman are watchable professionals, though neither is stretched — while Michelle Williams brings some warmth to an underwritten role. Cinematography is slick and polished, befitting a New York-set corporate thriller, but offers nothing particularly distinctive. The film's novelty is low; the erotic-thriller-meets-con-game formula was well-worn by 2008 and Deception adds little fresh to it. The ending is especially weak, resolving its machinations in a rushed and unsatisfying manner that undermines whatever tension the film had built.