Absolute Deception (2013) User Reviews

From A to B

[kosmasp · 4/10 · 14 June 2014]

Emmanuell V. is one very good looking actress. And I guess Cuba Gooding Jr. is not bad on the eyes either. The latter also being an Oscar winning actor. But both being not really on any kind of game that would deserve to be really seen, acting wise that is. And the story is not giving us much either.

Still this movie does check all the right points and the story flows along nicely. It's cliché and you know where this is going to (the title not helping with any twists, if you could call them that). There is some decent action scenes, especially considering the budget this had. Some dialog is not bad either, especially when Emmanuell is chatting with Cuba, but overall not something you have to watch

I gave it a 4 for the nice scenery

[blanche-2 · 4/10 · 14 April 2015]

The Gold Coast in Australia looks positively gorgeous in "Absolute Deception," a film from 2013 which stars Cuba Gooding, Jr., Emmanuelle Vaugier, Ty Hungerford, and Evert McQueen.

The plot is derivative, about a reporter, Rebecca Scott (Vaugier) who finds out that her dead husband, supposedly killed in a car accident two years earlier, has actually just died in Australia, living under the name Miles Archer, and married to someone else. He was about to be put into the Witness Protection Program. An accountant, he had his hand in the billion-dollar cookie jar of his new boss, a Bernie Madoff type named Osterberg. In order to avoid being killed, he was turning evidence over to the FBI. But Nelson doesn't get to him in time and sees him killed. So he's dead again.

Rebecca heads for Australia to find out what happened. There she runs into Nelson, Osterberg, and an obstinate Police Inspector Hendricks. Basically they would all be happy if she would just go home.

The acting is awful. Emmanuelle Vaugier is beautiful, but there is no chemistry at all between her and Gooding. Gooding does okay, but I have a feeling he just phoned it in. She definitely did. I noticed posts about her eyebrows. If you're watching a film and noticing someone's eyebrows, how into it can you be? There's a twist at the end but by then I'm afraid not many people cared. Very by the numbers, slow in spots, badly acted, and boring. But as I said, nice scenery.

A perfect movie title.

[carlosarango-980-744058 · 3/10 · 3 May 2015]

Yes, If Cuba is hired by Australians it is because they have a really good plot that requires a heavy weight actor. Wow, what an Absolute Decepción (well, deception in English reads like Spanish decepción which means disappointment).

It seems Cuba said... "Ok guys, I'm for the money and I wanna spend some days partying in the Gold Coast". An that's what he did! Even seconds after a terrible murder scene he is smiling along with amateur Emanuelle V. having a great time.

If there is a reason why Cuba's name is today (april 2015) on the "Where are these actors now?" list is for being part in such mediocre movie like this one.

Now just what was that!?

[tim-anderson94 · 1/10 · 29 November 2013]

This movie starred a couple of pretty faces that knew nothing about playing simple make-believe (acting). The acting was so bad that one could have transported the actors on the stage of SNL and you would have thought they were performing a parody. They exaggerated the seriousness of their characters to the point that they could have been with Leslie Nielson on board the movie "Airplane". Cuba acted on the script that was given to him, and it left him looking like an amateur. This was so bad on so many levels. I guess they had to push it in the market places (trusting enough people would watch it) to pay off the cost of making it. The director should have directed himself right out of doing any more movies, and the actresses...well don't quit your day job.

Waste of time! 1/10

[leonblackwood · 1/10 · 5 July 2014]

Review: This is a terrible "made for TV" type movie with bad acting and a boring storyline. I lost interest earlier on in the movie because it was obvious what was going on. The director tried to add some wit to this thriller, which really didn't work, and the lady who played the leading role wasn't really that convincing as an investigator. I wasn't expecting that much from the film, so I wasn't overly disappointed, but the director could have at least tried to make a watchable film. The whole thing seemed cheap without that much thought so I would leave this one off of your rental list. Terrible!

Round-Up: This must have been a simple pay day for Cuba Gooding Jr. I can't see him reading the script, thinking that it was that amazing, and you can tell by his acting that he didn't put his all into it so I will just out this down to another bad choice. The lady who plays the lead (Emmanuele Vaugier), who has starred in movies like Saw II and 40 Days & 40 Nights, wasn't that amazing in this film. She just became annoying after a while which made the movie more difficult to watch.

I recommend this movie to people who like there cheap thrillers about a woman trying to find out what happened to her dead husband. 1/10

Plot Contrivances Become Too Much

[larrys3 · 4/10 · 18 July 2013]

In this film, set mostly in Gold Coast, Australia, the plot contrivances became way too much for my tastes. The scenery in this resort area of Australia is eye-catching and the filmmakers made sure there were a number of voluptuous looking women on screen, but the script seemed cobbled together from elements that we've all seen before.

Cuba Gooding Jr., who has been doing a number of these Grade B films recently, stars as FBI Agent John Nelson who is trying to bring down a billionaire Australian Ponzi schemer named Ronald Osterberg (Chris Betts). However, his chief informant Dennis Archer is killed just before he's to meet with Agent Nelson.

Emmanuelle Vaugier co-stars as Rebecca Scott, an intrepid investigative reporter for Spyglass magazine, in New York City. She thought her husband Miles Scott ((Ty Hungerford) was killed in an auto accident two years before. However, Agent Nelson has flown to NYC to inform her her husband not only faked his death but fled to Australia. In that country he went under the name Dennis Archer, re-married and began working for Osterberg. Agent Nelson, of course, also told Rebecca that he saw her husband get shot and killed.

Rebecca is shocked by this news, but being an investigative reporter, she travels to Australia, against the advice of Agent Nelson, to try and uncover the whole story. There's a lot of conflicts that will occur between Rebecca, Agent Nelson, and the Australian federal Police Inspector Hendricks (Evert McQueen). There's also more murder and mayhem to follow.

I thought the repartee between Rebecca and Agent Nelson only partially worked, as perhaps a good part of it was even ad-libbed. Additionally, the hinting of a possible relationship between the two seemed far fetched to me.

The supposed "big surprise" at the end I didn't think was that much of a surprise and could have been reasonably figured out early on in the movie. All in all, the plot coincidences and contrivances were too much.

4 stars out of 10

It's all about the plot...or lack of it

[casablancavic · 1/10 · 23 September 2016]

Though I an not a police detective, nor reporter or journalist, I do have enough knowledge to know that police investigations do not operate nearly this bad.

Though I am not a crime scene investigator, I also know that there would be enough police to be stationed outside a crime scene where a multiple murder has taken place for days or even weeks upon end and nobody with a 2 block radius would just walk nearby without being questioned - especially in a wealthy neighborhood,just as the dead wife's house.

Let alone have people wander around on the very evening of the murder investigation without having police stationed outside or inside the house.

This story could have been very good had some thought been put into it, but I can only assume that the budget did not have enough to cover another 40 rewrites and proper effective detective research and operation techniques as well as computer hacking methods.

The entire script is crap from opening scene to closing scene.

This was not even amateur writing, this was so poor in construction that amateurs should feel proud.

It was an easy payday for Cuba and a nice vacation, because there is no other reason to want to sign onto something this bad when you are as established like him.

Crap script and a shame that somebody would sign off on this as something that was good enough to be released for TV or DVD viewing.

Baad, bad, bad.

Not that bad

[brendastks · 4/10 · 14 February 2021]

Thought a 1 was a bit harsh, it's a watchable film, with a mystery to it.

Decent B-movie thrills from Brian Trenchard-Smith

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 15 November 2016]

ABSOLUTE DECEPTION is another B-movie thriller from director Brian Trenchard-Smith, a man responsible for some great and some not-so-great films over the years. This is one of his better movies, a fast-paced story of corruption and murder and the crusading efforts of a couple of small fry to bring down the big bad guys.

The film is set in Australia, of course, and features a gorgeous lead actress in the form of Emmanuelle Vaugier, who also delivers a pretty good performance to boot. Cuba Gooding Jr. hangs around the scenes too but has a very limited character although he handles himself well in the action stakes. Speaking of action, there's plenty of it here and it has a decent Bourne-style hard edge mixed with some of the old-fashioned stunts that Trenchard-Smith has always enjoyed inserting into his movies. Although the story is nothing special the bright and colourful cinematography makes this a fine-looking thriller and a film I enjoyed throughout.

Well, that was bad.

[JerlskovFlunkhede · 1/10 · 16 April 2019]

Wow. This is so bad, it's actually quite entertaining.

I feel bad for Cuba. Didn't realize his career as an A-lister was over.

Good movie!

[nancymcc-59008 · 9/10 · 22 March 2022]

I liked the movie. I don't know why it has a small rating. Everyone has a different taste. Millionaires are ponzis that's how they're millionaires.................

Deceptively mediocre.

[Jonathon_Natsis · 6/10 · 21 May 2014]

Aussie director Brian Trenchard-Smith's reputation for squeezing every penny while delivering action mixed with a somewhat warped sense of humour is on scant display in his latest project, Absolute Deception. Queensland's sun-drenched Gold Coast is the perfect backdrop for a high- stakes game of cat and mouse, and the film makes for a mostly tolerable experience, but lacks any point of difference amidst the stunted landscape of action-thrillers.

Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a no-nonsense FBI agent who witnesses the murder of Miles, a man about to placed in witness protection. In giving the bad news to the victim's wife (the stunning Emmanuelle Vaugier), we learn that Miles faked his death two years prior, setting up a web of lies that seem to tie in with Miles' shady second wife and Murdoch-esque media mogul Mr. Osterberg.

Gooding and Vaugier display solid chemistry as the reluctant tag team, and their snappy interplay forms the highlight of the film. Unfortunately, outside of these fleeting moments of creativity, there is little else to stimulate the senses script-wise. Even more surprisingly, it is actually Vaugier, as the nosy and fearless reporter Rebecca Scott, who drives most of the plot. Meanwhile, Gooding feels more like a bit player despite his top billing, leaving much to be desired considering he is infinitely the more interesting character.

Although highly revered by a man who built an empire on cinematic thrills in Quentin Tarantino, Trenchard-Smith fails to impose his will on the film's direction. This isn't without giving it a decent shake-up in the process, but every time Absolute Deception looks primed for a step into the big leagues it grounds out in a blaze of unfettered predictability; a matinée shell of something that could've been a ton of fun.

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Abysmal Debacle (2013)

[sboatwright-65697 · 1/10 · 3 June 2018]

Believe me. It's just that bad. After 5 years, I thought technology of filming a car moving whilst actress appears riding in the backseat of a car, but all shot in in the studio went out w/the 1960s, but nope. Cuba looks like he was so short of money, he couldn't even show up for filming w/a shave and a haircut. The plot, characters, and acting is so bad, 2hrs of "Pawn Stars" watching Grandpa sleep at his desk is more entertaining. Horrible.

Better with the volume off

[bobbrum · 4/10 · 6 December 2022]

This was playing commercial-free on HDNet. I was playing with the phone anyway and then I took a nap. Nice scenery and pretty actress, but that's it. Mercifully the ending credits seemed to come up fast.

Unfortunately I am done with this review, but I am still required to add several hundred more characters or I can't post this thing.

So here's a story: I almost got run over by the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. It was the late 80s and I was a dumb college student who was jaywalking across a busy two lane street. I could see that a vehicle was approaching at high speed, but I knew I could easily make it across. Half-way across I froze like a deer because I couldn't believe that I was about to get flattened by a speeding hot dog. Luckily, I came to my senses and made it across.

We'll that was fun and now I can finally post this thing.

Absolute Disaster:This Film Is Only For Emmanuelle Vaugier Fans

[FilmMan47 · 3/10 · 7 May 2014]

the title of this film is deception or absolute deception i say its absolute disaster this is only for fans of Miss Vaugier it came out in 2013.

the plot:John Nelson an FBI agent tells Rebbecca Scott that her husband just died & he used fake alias & was doing some illegal things in Australia together when they investigate the mystery they find themselves in a tricky situation.

the cast:Cooba Gooding Jr this man even surpasses Steven Seagal the amount of discs he has released in last 10 years shows is career,as for Emmanuelle Vaugier this lady is a decent actress but people have complained about her eyebrows & thin body shes a nice eye candy though,the rest cast is wasted except Chris Betts who played Ronald Osterberg he looked like a villain straight out of a James bond film.

this is a TV move not theatrical but it fails to hit the target as a lot of forced & bad acting is involved the story is more made up for stand up comedy then serious suspense genre.

overall if you are a fan of Emmanuelle Vaugier then do watch this otherwise Skipp it my rating is 3/10.

Disappointing

[cris-sette · 1/10 · 3 May 2020]

I absolutely love all movies with Cuba and was surprised I have missed this one. After 10 minutes into it I got my answer. What a s**t movie. Bad acting, bad story, bad special effects....nothing survives this s.... movie. Cuba is great in any movie but he can not make miracles. What a waste of my time....

Absolute Cr@p

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 2/10 · 2 December 2021]

Cuba Gooding Jr crawls out of he gutter long enough to go for expository walks at a hotel pool, a beach, a marina, and anywhere else the Melbourne Tourism Bureau figured would make the authoritarian nightmare of a city look good.

He's an FBI agent WAY out of his jurisdiction. Trying to solve the crime of a guy who fake his own death. Cuba gets to wave his gun around quite a bit. He doesn't appear to do any, you know, crime solving.

Also in the picture if the guy's ''widow." She pretends to be a magazine writer. Who doesn't do much writing.

Also, if Russell Crowe's younger brother or son or lookalike konks you on the head with a fire extinguisher there's a good chance you're gonna wakeup dead.

G'day mate.

Terrible and extremely boring!!!

[nikos_vasileiadis-83808 · 1/10 · 17 November 2022]

As i said,the plot is very boring. It lacks realism and a lot of things happened because they had to make them work ignoring the cheesiness of that. One reporter and one special agent kept getting in locked crime scenes like a charm doing what they wanted to do. Poor acting,terrible special effects bypassed events(she found someone outside from her hotel room and the other morning she met the detective without saying a thing about that).

The only good thing from this movie,was the great cinematography.

IT WAS TERRIBLE!!!

Don't waste your time like i did.

If i could i would give this movie 0 stars!!!

Pretty, and OK

[zo-74838 · 5/10 · 3 August 2020]

There were 16 reviews for this film and I read them all. They all have valid points, and I thought the 4.2 rating was fair as well.

The opening credits immediately told me that this was a film with a limited budget, although I hoped for better with one famous actor starring.

I soon got engrossed with the film and lost my low-budget reservations. There were a few little continuity issues. But overall, not too bad.

Three Times a Widow

[lavatch · 8/10 · 22 June 2023]

One of our favorite actresses, Emmanuelle "Lifetime" Vaugier stars as Rebecca Scott, a reporter who achieves the rare feat of a triple play in thrice becoming a widow with the same man!

Cuba Gooding, Jr. Is excellent as FBI agent John Nelson who teams up with Rebecca in the Gold Coast of Australia to investigate the second death of her husband Miles. Previously, he had faked his death in a fire, and the last time Rebecca saw him was at his funeral.

Rebecca and John prove themselves skillful in cracking safes and hacking into computers to learn about the money laundering scheme of the magnate Ronald Osterberg. Rebecca's husband Miles worked for him before his untimely death, possibly at the behest of Osterberg.

There is an excellent twist towards the end of the film that offers a profound realization to Rebecca about the true nature of her husband.

There was also an intriguing scene in which Rebecca and John had the opportunity to steal $10 million in cash, yet remained true to their callings as an honest cop and a reporter with integrity.

TRY MY BIRTHDAY

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 7 August 2018]

The film has all the feel, graphics, CG effects, and dialouge as a made for TV film. Dennis Archer (Ty Hungerford) is supposed to deliver information to James, an FBI agent (Cuba Gooding Jr.) but dies before it happens, although they haven't found the body. Mild manner accountant Archer had faked his death before in NY when he was married to investigative reporter Rebecca Scott (Emmanuelle Vaugier). Rebecca did an article on an Australian billionaire who is now under criminal investigation. It just so happens her ex-dead husband worked for him before he died a second time.

Rebecca goes to Australia to investigate her husband's death and ends up tagging along with Cuba Goodling jr. after his initial protest.

The script is improbable to say the least, especially the main relationship. NY driver's licenses do not require fingerprints either. The film was far too predictable to make it enjoyable. The highlight of the picture is the occasional predictable banter that goes on between Goodling and Vaugier. Save your money and wait for Lifetime to show it.

Parental Guide: no f-bombs or sex. Some distorted frosted shower scene rear nudity...and I think she was wearing a bikini on top of that. Some violence, but really doesn't rate an "R" in my opinion.

Garbage movie, basically

[BlurryWitch · 2/10 · 20 January 2023]

The script is really bad.

The characters do stupid, illogical things.

The female lead quickly becomes irritating. I don't know why so many movies, when trying to portray a sassy, fearless, determined, or feisty woman, make her so annoying.

There's lots of action. The music during action sequences was also annoying.

The big plot twist at the end was no surprised at all. I mean come on, it was obvious from the start, and it became more and more obvious, the more we learned.

SPOILERS AHEAD

During the entire movie, I felt irritated and wondered why nobody was mentioning the possibility that he could have faked his own death, again. He already did it once, he could very well have done it again. The FBI agent, whose name I forgot, even though the movie ended five minutes ago (!!! This says a lot about how memorable this movie is) witnessed his death, but from far away, the bullets could have been blanks, and no body, just one little finger? Oh come on. And nobody wonders even once, "hey, maybe he faked his death again and is behind all this?" I hate it when scripts make the characters utterly stupid just for plot purposes.

The one thing that did come to a surprise to me is how she shoots him at the end, Yes he had a gun but in that moment he wasn't particularly threatening, not like he was about to shoot her or anything. It felt like she just shot him in cold blood. It didn't feel justified and I was shocked. US American movies often show "good guys" getting away with murder, while "bad guys" often end up dying. Not cool.

I liked that they end up together in the end. That's probably the only thing I liked about the movie.

I wasn't expecting much but even with such low expectations, I was disappointed anyway. Really low-level movie. Watch only if you have time to kill and have already watched everything else.