Damian Harris directed this instantly forgettable, one-box-of-popcorn thriller starring Goldie Hawn with a very stylish eye--he really pours on the dizzying visual tricks--but a handsome, well-produced piece of trash is just that: trash. Hawn, toning down her upbeat persona, is curiously thoughtful and tense playing a woman whose husband has just died in a mysterious car accident; little by little she discovers he wasn't who he seemed to be. Gaping plot-holes aside, nothing exciting or substantial is done with this premise. I blame the casting director for the awful child actors in this movie (they are as bad as the tykes you see on TV commercials), but Harris' over-expanded finale--a foot chase--doesn't do Hawn or John Heard any favors either. Crack screenwriters Mary Agnes Donoghue and Bruce Joel Rubin are responsible for the achingly slim script, while the final freeze-frame of Hawn looking wistful is humorously self-defeating. There's nothing so terribly thoughtful about "Deceived". *1/2 from ****
Review of Deceived
