Deceiver

source: Deceiver

This is the first movie I have seen maybe ever that does not care if every person will understand it. You either have to watch this movie many times or be a very intelligent person to comprehend all the twists. One reviewer here was upset because it was what he called a wannabe "Usual Suspects." It is not: where the "Usual Suspects" sought to be so plain that every viewer would have to be able to piece together the ending 30 minutes in advance (the smoking Kaiser Shurze with a gold lighter, for God's sake) "Deceiver" utilizes something that has been missing from movies since the invention of Hollywood- abstractions. In case it's been a while since anyone has heard of those, they are abstract concepts that are targeted for only a select few people (the most intelligent people). Abstractions have always and still are being used in serious literature; however, I have never known them to be in movies- Hollywood has always dumbed down it's material for the mainstream's enjoyment. The question is, then, are you intelligent? I mean, do you consider yourself to be a smart man? As smart as the next guy? Watch "Deceiver, and feel the thrill of knowing you have a superior intelligence at every realization of an abstraction (the feeling that first reviewer I mentioned obviously didn't get). Also, some of the reviewers here seem addled. If you've thought and thought and still know the pieces somehow don't fit, don't fret, all of us have missed one or two puzzles in our day; the very fact that something doesn't sit well with you proves your naturally exceptional level of intuition (hell, my friend didn't get it and he's mensa). Anyways, I know how not knowing the answer can frustrate a person, so if any of you guys that appreciated this movie enough to review it, I'll help you out, and I guarantee you'll be hitting yourself on the forehead.

I really would subtitle this movie "The Reefer Madness of Absinthe." There are blatant lies and propoganda about its use througout the film. Let's start off with the movie first, however. Terribly shot, with awful lighting, this falls into that mid-late 90's Usual Suspect/Tarantino wanna-be flick with it's "innovative" cinematography and cuts (note sarcasm). The story is ridiculous and unbelievable. Tim Roth plays a spoiled eccentric rich kid who gets involved with a prostitute while "jacked up" on absinthe. When the prostitute is found dead his phone number is found in her pocket, thus tying him to the murder. He then gets interrogated by two awful cops who subject him to multiple polygraph tests and the plot sorta unravels from there. The un-truths in this movie are all over the place. First of all, absinthe does not make you crazy any more than a bottle of Wild Turkey. Secondly, the story of Van Gogh's absinthe use is partially fabricated. Third, polygraph tests cannot be used to convict someone for murder. Fourth, absinthe drinkers (as in the artist cited by the doctor in the film) do not typically end up cutting off their skin with a paring knife (unless they're a little psychotic to begin with). The DVD transfer is AWFUL, grainy, and the aspect ratio is obviously wider than 2.35:1 as seen in the cropped titles at the beginning of the film. If this movie is on some cable channel on a Saturday afternoon and you've nothing else to do, I'd reccomend it on the basis of a curiousity for it's blatant anti-absinthe propoganda. Otherwise, stay FAR away.

LIAR was a major let down. The most disappointing film I have seen for a while considering that I went in to it expecting to be thrilled. The reviews were excellent, the story looked very intriguing and the cast was good. A very stagy 'did he or didn't he' type of story which plods slowly along and leads up to a preposterous twist and very poor ending. To cap that off there isn't one character that you will take a liking too throughout the whole film.

7 out of 10. A great Rental movie. This thriller had me guessing all the way up to the end. I waffled back and forth from disliking characters to liking them. Roth is again great as a nuerotic over priveleged epeleptic. He is by no means a physically imposing man, but in some of the scenes, you get a real sense that this guy is dangerous. I also like any casting of Penn as the laughable but sincere looser. This movie is one of those rare pick-ups at Blockbuster..... never commercially touted, but seeing the actors on the box makes ya pick it up.... You get it home and wow.... its a great movie.

Loaded with fine actors, I expected much more from "Deceiver" than was delivered. The plot is extremely contrived and manipulative. The many flashbacks only add to the confusion. Believability flies out the window and with the ending becomes unbearable and downright ridiculous. I would strongly advise anyone who likes their movie plots to be based on something that is at least possible to avoid "Deceiver" because you will be very frustrated. Maybe I am just not hip enough to get it, but my suspicion is that many others were totally confused by the story line and especially by the ending. Blurring the line between reality and lies simply does not work because the entire movie made no sense. - MERK

A suspect forces his investigator to take a polygraph test. A cop plays Russian roulette with the suspect during the interrogation. The interrogation at the police station is performed with very dimmed lights. That drivel, in the minds of the makers of this movie, should create an impression of a very smart psychological thriller. However, it's just dumb.

First of all, this is not really a mystery thriller, it's more of an opportunity for the actors to chew the scenery. The plot makes no sense and the ending even less. It is pretentious in the extreme. Evidently the writers thought they were exploring the depths of the human soul and how people deceive themselves and others. Actually it's a mess. The three main characters, the suspect (Tim Roth) and the two cops are rotten to the core; in fact every character in this movie is rotten except for the prostitute/victim (Zellweger) who's an amiable dunce. A young woman has been murdered. The suspect is hooked to a lie detector and begins a game of psychological cat and mouse, the premise of which is so bogus it's impossible to sustain interest. All three, suspect and two cops, are lying and covering up unsavory parts of their lives. I got the feeling that the script was designed by postmodernists who don't believe there is any reality or any truth. This makes for terrible storytelling because if there's no reality as a reference point, there is absolutely no interest in the outcome. This is "Last Year at Marianbad" disguised as thriller. The ending doesn't make any sense because we are never told who actually committed the murder. We're given a brief scene, about five seconds, at the very end which suggests that the suspect has in fact faked his death and is revived, but that is too little to be sure of anything. How could that happen? Or was that just another flashback? Since everything seems to take place in an alternate surrealistic universe, where nothing makes sense anyway, then the only thought we are left with is: "Who cares?"

There are a lot of twists and turns in this film and the majority of the plot and the characters behaviour are not credible at all. It begins well but suddenly the viewer is catapulted into total confusion. The viewer is not sure whether anything or anyone is real. ..................SPOILER COMING UP................................. Personally I think that Tim Roth's character is bad. He is a rich boy who knows it and doesn't like anyone telling him what to do/think and thinks he is above the law. He uses his money and intelligence to do what he wants and this gets him out of a very bad situation. He is attracted to and thrives on an 'otherness' to his world of responsibility - illegal liqour, vice, drugs, murder.

This has hints of Abel Ferrara about it (esp. the welcome appearance of the late and lamented Chris Penn from Ferrara's 'The Funeral.') I've seen this twice now, and am still not quite sure who really murdered Elizabeth. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, but there's a sense here in which style predominates a bit too strongly over substance. Michael Rooker & Tim Roth overact a bit - so the steadying presence of Chris Penn is helpful here. I'd liked to have known more about Roth's upbringing and so forth than we're granted. The scenes of him with his parents & friends are some of the best - all that baloney with lie detectors in dimly lit rooms becomes a bit dreary after a while. Nice to see 1) Michael Parks (one of the nastiest villains in Twin Peaks) - here confirming one's idea that psychiatrists and psychologists are easily more strange and conflicted than their patients, and 2) Mark Damon - most famous in American cinema from Roger Corman's Fall of the House of Usher way back in 1960! Worth an outing if you should ever get bored with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but hardly worth all the effort you need to expend in an attempt to 'work out the story.' (By the way, are all American police really like this?)