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This column will go into spoilers, even revealing the ending, so if you haven’t seen Deception, well… there’s a good chance you’ve already seen something like it.

“I went through hell with this movie,” says director Marcel Langenegger of working on Deception. He had a limited budget, a reduced shooting schedule and was filming with an unfinished script. “Everything worked out, but it was crazy.” Having previously directed commercials, Deception was his first, and so far only, directorial venture. Originally called The List and then The Tourist, the script was penned by Mark Bomback, who also wrote Live Free or Die Hard. When the film went into production, Jason Keller and Patrick Marber were also both listed as writers, though once it was released any work they did went uncredited.

While working late in New York, overworked auditor Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) is interrupted by lawyer Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman). They begin chatting and build up a friendship. One day while meeting for lunch they both have their mobile phones (accidentally?) swapped. Since Wyatt mentions that he’ll be in London for a few weeks, Jonathan isn’t going to get his phone back anytime soon. Jonathan then receives a call from an unknown woman asking him if he’s free tonight. He says that he is and then meets the woman at a hotel, where they immediately go into a room and have sex. The following morning, Jonathan realises that Wyatt is on a sex club list, and so decides to use his phone to meet more women. He soon meets and falls in love with a mysterious blonde (Michelle Williams). During their second encounter she suddenly goes missing, and Jonathan becomes a suspect in her disappearance.

An interview with Joblo had Langenegger revealing the trouble he had to go through in order to get the film made. He was attached to the film for four years, and it didn’t really get off the ground till Hugh Jackman became involved. “I land Hugh Jackman. I meet him, he wants to do this part,” says Langenegger. “The script gets re-written and then he liked some of my ideas and resolve was good.” Jackman was then cast in Baz Lurhman’s Australia, leading Langenegger to believe that the film was now off. However, after the start date for Australia was delayed this created a window of opportunity for Langenegger. “‘Can you shoot me in four weeks, all of my parts, including everything?’” recalls Langenegger of a phone call he had with Jackman. “And I said ‘Yes.’ And then he said, ‘But we have to keep the original start date,’ which was October. And it was already August. We only had about five weeks to prep.”

Langenegger had to raise funds after 20th Century Fox pulled out, though they still distributed the film in the US. Jackman’s production company Seed Productions (a subsidiary of Fox) helped in financing the film, with Jackman credited as one of the many producers. “We had six or seven producers on the film,” says Langenegger. “They all hated each other. They all fought with each other and made things so difficult.” The film was shot over 44 days, with Langenegger having just one month to shoot all of Jackman’s scenes. “We had less days and less money then you cannot go over,” recalls Langenegger, “so the pressure was enormous.”

Most probably the biggest issue was the script itself, which was in the process of being rewritten while they were filming. “There were days when pages got faxed onto the set that we’d see for the first time,” says Langenegger. This might also explain the clunky dialogue. A cringe worthy highlight is Maggie Q’s small role as Tina, the one who introduced Wyatt to the sex club and explains why she wants to bed him, even though she finds him terrifying. “You know when it’s so good you’d rather die than stop?” It’s at this point where you say out loud, “Um… no.” Yet she continues and says, “You wanna kill someone. You wanna kill the person you’re doing it with.” Also, when Langenegger initially read a draft of the script, he said, “It doesn’t really make sense that Wyatt would steal the identity of a guy he frames for murder.” He’s absolutely right, yet it’s strange that this fault still comes across in the final film. Not a good sign when after everything is revealed you start counting up the plot holes.

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