dpaikeday This was a mediocre movie that was predictable. Wyatt Bose's (a corporate lawyer) shows sudden random interest in Jonathan (an auditor) who then become friends with a week full of social engagements. Jonathan does not have much of a social life however Wyatt certainly appears to have one. I find it questionable how Wyatt suddenly is able to dedicate so much time to Jonathan. The fact that the movie is called "deception" makes it a very predictable setup. It wasn't clear to me how and why Wyatt picked Jonathan and how he plotted the entire thing. What followed was the case of simple blackmail with a predictable twist. While the acting was good, the storyline was weak.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Overdone as well as confusing 1960's like robbery caper that has the nerdy Johathan McQuarry, Ewan McGreror, have himself transformed from a shy geeky audit adjuster to a man's man or man about town whom the ladies on Wall Street and financial world just get enough of. That's due to his friend on the job at a major NYC brokerage house Wyatt Bose, Hugh Jackman. It was when Bose switched his cell-phone with his while the two were having lunch in Central Park that things started popping for the introverted Jonathan. Women who are members of the sex club that Bose is a member of were calling Jonathan day and night and leaving their phone numbers as well as places, swanky mid-town hotels, where he can meet them for no holds barred anything goes anonymous sex.We and Jonathan soon find out that there's a reason to all this madness or good fortune on his part. Bose aka Jamie Getz a convicted embezzler and on the lamb murderer is setting him up for the killing in him embezzling his firm of 20 million smackers or dollars by transferring the money into an account in Madrid Spain's Banco National! What's so confusing about all this is that the account is in Jonathan not Bose's name? And to make doubly or even triple sure that Jonathan goes along with his scheme Bose frames him in the brutal murder of Wall Street stock annalist Semione Wilkerson, Natasha Henstridge, one of Jonathan's one night stands that all has all the evidence points to him being her murderer. Bose even goes so far as kidnapping Jonathan's girlfriend Miss. "S", Michelle Williams, whom he met in the NYC Subway waiting for the number 6 train. It's Miss."S" who also turned out to be a member of Bose's secret sex club who threatens to murder her if Jonathan doesn't go along with his plans!***SPOILERS*** Jonathan knowing that his as well Miss. "S" goose is cooked if his doesn't come through,embezzling 20 million dollars from his financial firm, goes along with what Bose tells him to do until he notices a cell-phone photo of a tied up Miss "S" Bose sent him and that ends up turning the tables on him. What that manipulating and conniving jerk Wyatt Bose didn't realize that there was something in Jonathan's apartment, where the photo was taken, that would tip him off that he was being set up! And as things turned out it was the building superintend Nobert Lewman, Frank Girardeau, who ended up taking the hit or shot meant for him!Still the beautiful scenery in both New York City and Madid Spain coupled with the sexy and high class women in the movie made up for all the mistakes and inconsistencies in it. Especially the unbelievably ridicules ending that has to rank among the worst and most convoluted in all of motion picture history!

Targe This movie is a classic case of weak story supported by strong actors.The entire plot is given away by the title, and perhaps the movie should have been more accurately called 'The List', giving it a sinister, secret cult like feel along the lines of Eyes Wide Shut.What we get instead is an EXTREMELY predictable storyline with few surprises and plodding dialogue.You can never have a truly awful movie with the likes of Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman front and centre, but their talents are wasted on a truly bad script.Michelle Williams is serviceable as the extremely predictable 'girl for hire' seductress.You see the ending coming from 50 miles out, as the movie pulls the ridiculous device of playing 'this is the end of the movie' music for the next 20 minutes after you think the main hero is dead.To top it all off, after realizing his personality is essentially dead, by placing his forged passport on the body of the villain, and having no future to return to in the US, the hero walks away from 20 million CASH with the pretty call girl in tow, RIDICULOUS.The movie could have been far superior if he had instead transferred another 50 million to another bank in the same city that night, walked there with the girl at the end of the movie after killing the villain, and withdrawn the larger sum under the false identity he was travelling under! NOW they can walk off into the sunset! Maybe some playful dialogue, like "How do you feel about a really big boat???" "Response: Looks like my ship has come in!" There! BOOM!!! MUCH BETTER MOVIE!!!

nmlal68 I don't recall in recent times having seen a movie that got me as mad as this one. Yes, it's a TERRIBLE movie, but with the particularity of being so dumb, that you could not escape feeling furious. If it were only bad, that would have been bad enough but acceptable, in some cases even respectable. But this one was a nasty joke thrown at your face, a charade, an ugly farce.The beginning is very promising, even spectacular. You sit down, relaxed, with a drink in your hand, and start being pulled into a world of mystery and strange sexual schemes, and you think WOW!... finally something out of the ordinary, something that feels going deep into the dark side. And with excellent actors too. And you keep watching, fully enthusiastic, until you slowly realize that the plot you found so astonishing is after all just some minor side story, not even very important to the REAL plot, and that the REAL plot, a game of stupid uninteresting blackmail and computer burglary, is actually the main dish and you can't believe it. What about the OTHER plot, the good one, the one I was digging? HELP! I WANT IT BACK!What's going on? How can they do something like that? You are shown a deer but are fed the horns? And then it drags on and on into no man's land, everything so boring, so "for the McDonald's family", so full of the typical Hollywood crap, bla, bla, bla...And finally the ending, truly the worst I ever saw. They were even given the rare privilege of minimizing the damage with some twisted final, but no sir, it had to be one of those "mass audience bullshit" endings with a gun (two actually) and the bad guy dying and the good guy living and getting the ravishing girl that was bad but not that bad that turned out good after all.The UTTER DECEPTION! Good to feed the dogs with!