Deceit is a film about a man, Dave, who returns home after his father’s death to settle affairs and becomes reacquainted with his best friends Brian and Emily.  Emily is a very attractive woman, and Dave is not terribly bright- he has an affair with Emily soon after arriving, and contrary to some sound advice by an old friend, he pursues the relationship with his best friend’s wife.  Things quickly spiral out of control when Emily turns up badly beaten, and implicates Brian as the one who assaulted her after learning of the affair.  Dave soon finds himself caught up in a web of lies and deceit, not knowing who to trust and refusing to believe his new love might not be all that she appears- and all the while the real culprit remains hidden behind the scenes.

Deceit tries to be an edgy, suspenseful thriller, but in ends up being a pretty standard who-done-it.  The real problem is that you are only in the dark as to who-done-it until the very first time you see that character, then you instantly know who-done-it.  The mystery quickly goes away, and you know how it all will end up.  This is due in large part to the way the guilty character is portrayed- that is, guilty as hell.  I don’t want to say much more as to not spoil the film, but if you watch the movie, you will see what I am talking about.

It is really too bad, as but for that one big misstep, the film is actually not bad.  Had the guilty character been better played and written, the ending of the film have had the impact the producers where going for, but as it is, it ends up being obvious and clichéd.  For the most part, the rest of the cast does a good job.  The writing is solid, and the directing is not bad.  At the beginning of the film, you will find yourself getting sucked in to the characters, and even with the botched portrayal of the guilty character, the film is still pretty watchable, if for no other reason than Joe Pantoliano gives a great performance, and   Emmanuelle Chriqui is just plain hot.

Technically, I found the DVD transfer of the film to be pretty horrible.  It looked like I was watching an old VHS tape on my hi-def TV.  Depending on your AV system, your mileage may vary, but you can tell this film is heavily compressed.  The audio worked well enough, and the special features are very vanilla- nothing spectacular there at all.

If you have nothing better to do and an open slot on your Netflix queue, give Deceit a rental and check it out.  If you are looking for a really suspenseful thriller that will keep you guessing, you will want to look elsewhere first.

-Ed-