Lies and Deception (2005) starring Mädchen Amick, Andrew W. Walker, Joseph Kell, Ellen Dubin, Tony Calabretta, Linda Smith, Martin Thibaudeau directed by Louis Bélanger Movie Review

Lies and Deception (2005)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Mädchen Amick as Jean Brooks in Lies and Deception (2005)

Mädchen Gets Deceived

When you watch and review TV movies you usually come to expect certain things, those are that whilst a movie may have a reasonable idea it is usually spoilt by cliche characters, cliche scenes, a loose story and gaping plot holes. "Lies and Deception" is no different because whilst unoriginal with its story of a wife discovering that the husband she thought died 5 years earlier has only recently died it is a reasonable mystery with decent pacing. But all of this is kept very average by a story which suffers because of plot holes, lacks a certain amount of integrity when connecting the dots and throws up various cliches in the midst of some very standard direction. And it is a shame because "Lies and Deception" has the basis to be a reasonable thriller rather than one which ends up clinging on to being average.

5 years after her husband was declared dead having gone missing following a boating incident Jean Brooks (Mädchen Amick - Dream Lover) gets a shock when she is visited by Det. Ortuso (Tony Calabretta) who tells her that her husband Sam (Martin Thibaudeau) has been found dead slumped at the wheel of a car. In need of answers Jean hired Private Investigator Eddie Fate (Andrew W. Walker - Carnal Innocence) and travels with him to Detroit where it seems Sam had been living with a new wife Charlotte Porter (Ellen Dubin). But as they search for answers to why Sam faked his own death it becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems and their lives come under threat the deeper they dig into Sam's past.

Andrew W. Walker and Mädchen Amick in Lies and Deception (2005)

Now the idea of a wife discovering her husband hadn't died when she thought he had isn't new and has been part of big screen movies for quite a while. But it does give us the nice start where we have Det. Ortuso having to tell Jean Brooks that they found her husband dead in a car 5 years after he was declared dead having gone missing in a boating incident. This naturally leads to Jean wanting to find out what her husband Sam had been up to in those 5 years and having hired the rather cornily named Eddie Fate a Private Investigator goes to Detroit to try and uncover the truth as it comes to their attention that Sam remarried.

So we have this mystery which gets murkier because we not only have Jean and Eddie trying to work out what happened to Sam but it also seems that Sam may have been murdered. Also things don't ring true when Jean and Eddie meet Sam's new wife Charlotte and there is Chris an old medical colleague who shows up on the scene. Now there is a certain amount of predictability to this, you can work out that certain people are not as they seem and have a dark secret. But there is the mystery as to why Sam disappeared and that is where "Lies and Deception" manages to stay interesting because you do genuinely want to know why he disappeared having faked his death.

Unfortunately whilst there is this good mystery there is also the cliche, the cheesy cliche which sees Jean and Eddie falling for each other. Mädchen Amick and Andrew W. Walker actually do a good job of giving this cliche romance element a bit of a spark but it is such a cheesy side plot that you wish they had left it out. But then there are other issues and you have the fact for the most director Louis Bélanger keeps everything very standard, with very little style to making a scene look good yet then throws in a stylish camera angle such as a vertical shot of an outside building which feels out of place against all the standard stuff.

What this all boils down to is that whilst not having the most original ideas "Lies and Deception" does have a decent amount of mystery about it. It is such a shame that then so much is wrong from plot holes to cliche scenes that it ends up leaving the movie struggling to be average.


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