Deception

A nerdy corporate accountant (Ewan McGregor) meets a charming attorney (Hugh Jackman) who inducts him into an exclusive sex club—but only as a lead-in to something far more sinister. Old-movie buffs hoping for a remake of the campy 1946 Bette Davis-Claude Rains melodrama will be disappointed—but then, so will everybody else, especially if they’re drawn into the theater by the presence of McGregor or Jackman, or by Michelle Williams as the obligatory woman of mystery. Mark Bomback’s script is a hopeless “erotic thriller” that, as it happens, is neither—a junk drawer of cavernous plot holes, transparent twists clumsily telegraphed far in advance and fumbling payoffs, none of which make any sense. Marcel Langenegger’s direction moves at a snail’s pace, inducing impatience rather than suspense.