Don't Be Deceived, This Movie Is Truly A Mess

Movie review

X 1/2 "Deception," with Andie MacDowell, Liam Neeson, Viggo Mortensen, Jack Thompson. Directed by Graeme Clifford, from a script by Robert Dillon and Michael Thomas. Alderwood, Everett Mall, Factoria, Lewis & Clark, Seatac North, Varsity. "PG-13" - Parental guidance advised because of subject matter, language. -------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally scheduled for release several months ago, when it was called "Ruby Cairo," this costly mess can't decide whether it wants to be (a) a survival story about a destitute young widow/mother or (b) a study of love betrayed or (c) a Hitchcockian thriller-travelogue in the tradition of "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

Mostly it's a waste of gorgeous location work (the veteran cinematographer is Laszlo Kovacs) and the talents of Andie MacDowell, who is far more effective as the distraught mother in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," and Liam Neeson, who does the best work of his movie career as the hero of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" (opening Dec. 15).

While they do get to climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops together, and MacDowell shares a lot of screen time with landmarks in Veracruz, Athens and Berlin, there's not much else for them to do. Neither is likely to be listing "Deception" on their resumes, nor is Jack Thompson, an excellent Australian actor who is reduced to playing a pointless cameo.

Skin-deep on every level, the script by Robert Dillon ("Revolution") and Michael Thomas ("Ladyhawke") begins with MacDowell playing a stressed-out Los Angeles wife and mother who clips coupons, bounces checks and feeds frozen pizza to her three children. After one especially depressing grocery run, she learns that her movie-star-handsome husband (Viggo Mortensen) has died in a plane crash in Mexico.

Or has he? She visits Veracruz to bury him, discovers a collection of baseball cards that are tied to bank accounts in several countries, then runs into a roadblock when she tries to close out a couple of European accounts. She also spends time with an amiable humanitarian (Neeson) who's working for an organization, Feed the World, that is somehow tied to her husband.

The mystery is explained in Cairo, but by the time MacDowell gets there the audience is too many steps ahead of her. The director, Graeme Clifford ("Frances," "Gleaming the Cube"), telegraphs most plot developments with ludicrously ominous effects, including close-ups of the feet of characters whose identities he's trying to hide.

These episodes make abundant use of Third World stereotypes. They're saved only by the lively individuality of the performers, especially Lydia Lenossi as an Egyptian bureaucrat who accepts bribes with beaming enthusiasm. Natassa Manisalli is briefly, glowingly effective as a Greek bank employee.

Neeson has one amusing nongeneric moment, as he faces a group of supporters as if he were going into battle, but the movie has to be carried by MacDowell. The script asks her to be a private eye, a suspicious wife, a devoted mother, a romanticizing widow and a flirt, and the character doesn't add up.