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Deception
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: April 31, 2008

I am usually a bit baffled to hear people dismiss a perfectly enjoyable movie because it isn't "believable." Plausibility is perhaps the 11th or 12th most important ingredient for me, well below deal-breakers such as craftsmanship, acting, my level of engagement, and so on. This is what I tell myself, anyway, until a film like Deception comes along to completely overturn my usual hierarchy of filmgoing values. Deception is engaging, it's very well-acted, it's competently rendered, and yet the plot is so repeatedly, laughably, unforgivably preposterous that almost any viewer will feel obliged to resist its premise out of sheer self-respect.

Here's what the movie's about, folks, and believe me, my fingers protest as my brain wills them to type the following words into sentences. A nerdy, uptight accountant named Jonathan is duped by a con-man named Wyatt into swapping cell phones, joining an anonymous sex club, falling in love with a femme-semi-fatale, and pulling off a $20 million electronic corporate heist. It's the perfect crime... if you allow that all of the peripheral characters would unwittingly abet Wyatt's con, that the two characters would set their cell phones down side by side and then Jonathan would pick up the wrong one, that the introverted Jonathan would go meet an anonymous woman at a hotel just because she calls Wyatt's cell phone, that the introverted Jonathan would turn out to be a stud in bed, and that Jonathan would fall in love with the femme-semi-fatale but none of the other gorgeous women from the anonymous sex club. Also, most importantly, the plot insists that Wyatt would foresee and count on all of these conveniences falling into place, and thus invest himself in the con in the first place. It's a bit more disbelief than a filmgoer can suspend, wouldn't you say?

There's more though. Jonathan is bailed out of his troubles by a leaky pipe in his apartment. (The building's hapless superintendent has perhaps the farthest telegraphed demise in film history.) And then, as a final exasperation, the film's conclusion requires that the city of Madrid suddenly void itself of police officers, tourists, and citizens. Heck, that's just plain lazy screenwriting, folks.

There is just no respect for reality in this movie. Which brings me back to the general topic of "believability" in film. Is it important, or not? Well, to my way of thinking, it depends greatly on a film's tone and its intent. Let's compare Deception to three other, very different preposterous movies, all of which, in my estimation, overcome their own implausibility and leave a good impression.

First, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The plot requires the lovesick hero and the woman who has ditched him to take separate Hawaiian vacations at the same time and at the exact same resort hotel. That's a stretch. And yet the film's comedic tone (and the overall quality of its comedy) make the premise not so much believable as acceptable. This is generally true of comedy. When it's done properly, an "anything goes" atmosphere is created that enables the viewer to welcome all kinds of silliness. And thank goodness for that, because otherwise we'd have to dismiss far-fetched plots like The Big Lebowski, or the nearly plotless hijinks of Austin Powers and Anchorman.

Then you've got Peter Jackson's King Kong. It's not a comedy, per se, but Jackson wisely chose a distinctly whimsical tone from the first frame, giving us Vaudeville acts, satirizations of the movie and theatre business, and numerous winks at the original 1933 film, all so that later, when almost no one gets trampled in a dinosaur stampede, or when the sun comes up over New York City about 30 minutes after it goes down, it all comes across as part of the ongoing shenanigans. Jackson's movie does of course make some heartbreaking statements about mankind's exploitation of nature, and about our destructive need to demystify the extraordinary. But for much of the film, the tone is light, and this gives the director free reign to tweak reality for our enjoyment.

Now consider Gone, Baby, Gone—not comedic or whimsical on any level, and yet this film's numerous plot contrivances all serve a profound message. The story is crafted to ask the viewer an important moral question, and so the impact is there at film's end, even if we gave up on believing the story a long time ago. Here, it's not the tone but the intent of the film that makes its implausibility forgivable.

So what about Deception then? Well it's an utterly humorous film without a message to speak of, which means it earns no license to bend, or toy with, or recreate reality. It simply, lazily asks the audience to be more generous, or more gullible, than most people are willing to be. In the interests of being thorough, folks, I must acknowledge that Deception is better than a lot of the lousy, throwaway movies I sit through in my filmgoing escapades. And that's entirely due to the acting. Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, both dependably interesting actors, play the lead roles. And while they may not manage to rescue this film from its own dunderheadedness, they do make two squandered hours seem a lot more tolerable. When Deception makes its inevitable rounds on the TNT network, you may find yourself roped in by this undeniable measure of quality. Be assured, though, you won't be deceived for long.

Copyright © 2008 Theo Michelfeld