Most thrillers today feel curiously neutered, with studios' demands for PG-13 entertainment making it difficult for directors to inject too much sex into their films. Deception feels like a throwback to the early-90s heyday of the erotic thriller subgenre, when it almost certainly would have been penned by Joe Eszterhas and starred Michael Douglas. As bad as most of those movies where, they had a trashy yet glossy allure to them, which makes it all the more disappointing that Deception comes across as fairly bland by comparison, with the role that would've been played by Sharon Stone or Demi Moore now falling to... Michelle Williams? Even with its female-friendly leading men Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, I can't imagine this really scoring with audiences (especially with that generic-sounding title). On the other hand, I imagine it'll have a solid second life on late-night pay cable. Who knows, I may even catch it there. If I hear there's T&A, that is.
