Jacomedi A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Jason Daniel Baker Single Manhattan art restorer Adrienne (Hawn) is stood up on a blind date in a restaurant but sees Jack Saunders - a charming man at another table. They meet where she works the next day as he drops off a piece to be restored. He is a museum curator. They have a lot in common and their 'meet-cute' evolves into a date and they more than hit it off. After a whirlwind courtship they are married.Flash-forward five years and they remain happily together with an adorable daughter. Their business interests coincide and they share a group of like-minded friends/co-workers as well as a chic and cozy apartment in a trendy neighborhood and enough to afford a young housekeeper. They don't appear to have it all but seem to have everything worth having and about as much as anyone should realistically ask for out of life.Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when the resident expert appraiser (Rubes) at the museum is found dead by Adrienne. It is an apparent suicide. This coincides with the discovery that a necklace in the museum worth $4.5 million is a forgery. A number of suspicious events Jack explains away to Adrienne with perfectly rational answers precedes an argument, a frank declaration of not feeling trusted and his departure from their home.Jack almost immediately perishes in a fiery car wreck leaving Adrienne a grieving and perplexed widow raising a very young daughter without a father. Her suspicions about him are momentarily obscured by having to explain death to her child and begin life anew with a gaping chasm once filled by a man who beguiled her so completely and capably handled so many responsibilities for her and their daughter.Those suspicions arise again exacerbated by revelations that the man she thought she knew was a different person altogether. The web of falsehoods is bold but not particularly intricate. The man who weaved them was also not very smooth or even adequately careful in many different aspects of his plan. Adrienne needs do little more than some elementary sleuthing following each massive lead to the conclusion.The shock for the heroine and the viewer rests in how much of a commitment the baddie makes in playing it all out and what he was prepared to leave behind in seeing it through. His play was a long-haul deception measured and executed over years leaving him no room for emotional attachments. This is a criminal type looking for his only big score before he takes early retirement.At any point he might have become seduced by the lie he was living and decided to abandon his material long-term objective to enjoy what he had. But a creature like this doesn't have the capacity to appreciate the things that normal people do or understand their value.John Heard's performance transitioning between being Prince Charming to volatile monster is convincing at all stages of his metamorphosis. When he begins haunting his own house while only pretending to be dead there is a strong vibe of eeriness. He appears to be something vastly different than human though not quite demonic or alien.A surprise hit in fall 1991 it marked the beginning of the late stage of Goldie Hawn's erratic but nevertheless quite successful career in feature films. She was in her mid-40's playing a character at least a decade younger. Whether the role suits her or not she at least was in something. She has only been in 31 productions. The English director Damian Harris has himself only made a dozen movies in 30 years.Beatrice Straight's last movie.Partly filmed at Toronto's world-renowned Royal Ontario Museum one may view an exterior shot of the beautiful old building before it was vandalized when a glass modern architecture monstrosity was erected on the Northwest wing facing Bloor Street. It's slanted glass remains a delightful canvas for the modern art the Toronto pigeon and seagull population craft upon it with their feces.

Scarecrow-88 Rare straight role for Goldie Hawn--no yucking it up here--is a totally serious part, a departure from the rest of her oeuvre. She portrays the happy wife to a husband who dies under supposed tragic circumstances, only for her investigation into his past turning up results she couldn't possibly have prepared for. John Heard is mainly involved in the ending with Hawn doing a lot of the heavy dramatic lifting. This part for Hawn features a rather aching, somber, and frustrated character; learning that your loving husband is a totally completely person, her Adrienne having to come to terms with some harsh realities, the role requires a certain type of disturbed, unsettled, and saddened temperament/response to the developments that transpire during her investigation. Heard's calm and rather ordinary phone call to Hawk, having their daughter in his possession, demanding the jewel necklace, and wanting her not to phone the police (or tell the woman next to her what their conversation's about) proves just how much of a sociopath he really is. Heard does lose it at the end when he must explain to Hawn that he does what is necessary when he has her cornered and seemingly at his mercy. Moody photography is a major plus even if a lot of the Hollywood devices (cat jumping out, pigeons flocking about out the window, the eye peering through the crack of a closet door, the little girl complaining to mommy in horror that a man was in her room) typical in these types of thrillers are used throughout. Doesn't invent the wheel, but Deceived should be of interest to fans of Goldie. The loud sound effects and noisy, obtrusive score, especially at the end when Heard is after Goldie and the necklace, can be a bit overbearing, but I like this change of pace for Hawn, trying a different genre (although, Foul Play was kind of comic thriller), and not relying on her gifted comedy skills must have been a challenge worth taking. Identity theft, so prevalent today, works its way into the investigation revealing Heard for the fraud that he is.

Spikeopath Deceived is directed by Damian Harris and written by Mary Agnes Donoghue & Bruce Joel Rubin. It stars Goldie Hawn & John Heard with music by Thomas Newman and Cinematography from Jack N. Green. Plot sees Hawn as a New York art restorer who finds her world is not as it seems after the unexpected death of her husband (Heard).Effective "straight" acting from Hawn in a so so thriller that promises more than it delivers. That Harris' movie never succeeds where other similar themed thrillers have is down to the unadventurous script. Which is a shame because tonally, visually and aurally the film is a triumph. There's a heavy weight of familiarity that hangs over the piece and we yearn for the story to step up a grade and give us something new. We can accept implausibilities, some of which are just stupid here, if the story takes us in an unexpected direction, sadly Deceived reverts to type right down to the cat & mouser chase finale that closes with complete absurdity.As "Sleeping With The Enemy" proved (released the same year as Deceived), there is, and always will be, a market for well budgeted thrillers. Particually when led by good female character actors. Yet Deceived commits one of the ultimate sins against a supposed "heroine" character, it makes her look, well, dopey. The little twists and turns have a Hitchcockian feel to them, but they just come off as contrived. Thus as Hawn goes about unravelling the mystery that's come about after the can of worms is opened, the shock value is mostly tepid.Great scoring from Newman and atmospheric photography from Green help to create the illusion this is a better film than it actually is. Even Heard deserves a pat on the back for managing to not let the script bog his acting down as he makes the character work. But this is mostly forgettable stuff and can't be recommended with confidence. 5/10

Robert J. Maxwell It isn't so bothersome that Goldie Hawn's husband is double-crossing her. It's that he's triple-crossing her.Hawn and Heard are evidently a happily married couple with two kids. But after all these years, some evidence comes to light that Heard may be lying to her about his activities. Someone claims to have seen Heard in the Chesterfield Hotel in New York, their home city, when in fact Heard was supposed to be attending a business meeting in Boston. A few other hints support the contention that he was lying.But why? Hawn wonders if he's been having an affair. What wife wouldn't? She snoops through Heard's drawers and the pockets of his older suits, as wives will, and digs up more suspicious evidence.She begins to back Heard into a corner. He's indignant, unbelieving, but something definitely seems wrong. Then he appears to be atomized in a car accident that ends in one of those fiery explosions that all car accidents end with. Is Heard really dead? I leave the answer to you, the experienced viewer, the informed consumer of these unimaginative mysteries with a threatened woman in the center of it. I myself am one of those consumers and I knew immediately that Heard hadn't died. I was right, as usual.I kind of enjoyed Heard's sliminess. That charming smile, that oleaginous demeanor. Smooth and comfortable -- even when Hawn discovers that he's not only assumed a dead man's identity, deserted his parents, kidnapped his own child, and committed bigamy -- he's the kind of guy who once had an awkward moment just to see what it felt like.But this is merely a variation on a familiar theme -- the woman betrayed. Usually the husband is the betrayer, sometimes an old boyfriend. The villain ordinarily beats up the wife, is unfaithful to her, stalks her, makes threatening phone calls and so forth, and the wife has difficulty convincing anyone else that the danger is anywhere but in her own mind.Given that this is a pretty base formula, I still got a kick out of watching her unravel this complicated mystery of her husband's identity. I prefer them a little more thoughtful, something like "The Day Of The Jackal." Well, that's not about the identity of a husband but of an international assassin, but it's more plausible. When you come right down to it, it's hard to believe that a woman could live for so many years with a fraud and then have the mix-up revealed in a few days.