Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Very Cool!!!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Well-acted and creepy film. Tim Roth's American accent was so amazing I had to verify it was him. Phenomenal. Roth plays a cynical, sometimes vicious, alcoholic given to apparent epileptic blackouts who hates his wealthy parents. Renee Zellweger is moving as the prostitute he is accused of butchering. Michael Rooker and Chris Penn are Kennesaw and Braxton, the rough-edged cops investigating but Roth's moneyed character is able to learn the cops' own embarrassing and ruinous dark secrets which he intends to use for his own purposes. He at times essays a contemptuous upper-class dudgeon, sneering at those he considers his lessers but that seems more ostensible than genuine, done for effect, if you will.By the time the table have briefly turned and Kennesaw is attached to the lie detector, the film strains credibility in a way that it had managed to avoid doing primarily through the viewer's willing suspension of disbelief and the strength of Roth's performance. At this point, while Kennesaw is undergoing a mini-meltdown, Rooker's thick Southern accent rendered much of what he was saying unintelligible (at least to these NYC ears) and the film never quite recovers its equilibrium. The ending is a shocker in more than one way (although the quids pro quo that lead to it are manifest) -- but not one which lasts too long.

You need to first give a shout out to the cast, they all did a great job...But the best part of the film was the setting, the bulk of the movie is in an interrogation room with Tim Roth strapped to a polygraph test and a web of lies that spin the story so that anyone in the room could have been guilty of the murder.It doesn't exactly keep you guessing, but it keeps the atmosphere tense and claustrophobic. It's a moody film, and an original one, two things that are sorely lacking in the films that have come out since the mid 2000s.You are just not going to see great movies that are character driven, movies that don't need a staggering amount of special effects to keep you on the edge of your seat. Deceiver keeps you engrossed from start to end on dialogue and characters.There are plot holes, easier to see in a film that relies on the story and characters to drive it, but far less than the CGI extravaganzas that rely on computer animation to dazzle you into forgetting that there is little substance and less story.Take a few minutes to watch it, you haven't seen that many movies like it before and probably will never see movies like it again...that is not unless we abandon out culture of dumb.

CAUTION ****SPOILERS************ STARTS WITH A SPOILER! **The staged death near the end was a bit implausible and Braxton's part was not completely explained. Seems the money he puts in the Lieutenant Kennesaw's drawer is planted to give the Lieutenant grief, but was Braxton in on it? Is the appearance of Kennesaw taking payments or bribes sufficient justice for a murderer? Especially when they had a videotape showing that Kennesaw knew the hooker and was sexually violent with her -- possibly enough to establish a solid case for homicide? So why not just have him arrested and forego the need for Wayland to go underground and lose his inheritance? Like IMDBer "Robertllr" asked, why was the staged Braxton "debt" to Mookie integral to the plot? Sure, it was a flexing by Wayland, but unnecessary. And why other than to feed one's own ego was this insidious game even played against the police, especially tormenting Kennesaw? Yes there were lots of implausibilities and possibly unexplained parts of the plots.Elisabeth was adorable and rose above the part and lines, upstaging Rosanna Arquette (Mrs. Kennesaw) who had a similar part but looked terrible in character. Shapely Elisabeth is pretty and portrayed the tenderness in her platonic bond with Wayland nicely.The shrink and Mookie are famous actors and their fairly minor parts were very well-played. Ellen Burstyn as Mookie, with that hair, looked like Cate Blanchett when she played Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There."The film showed some anti-law enforcement leanings: a guy gets routinely manhandled by two cops in the background yet visible area at the station, just outside the interrogation room. The police in my city are much smarter and better-educated than this. The polygraph team is composed of a security guard that barely finished high school, and a knotted up, jealous, insecure tough, who are openly advertising they have, can and will manipulate the testing to try to convict Wayland, and brag about how poor lie detector results have locked men up for years. The most blatant incredibility is the cops' simplistic read on Wayland's answers: OK you have admitted to lies that aren't white lies so you must be a habitual, malicious liar. When he showed them he could trick the lie detector machine by picking a playing card, and causing it to malfunction when he lied and told the truth, they naturally would have suspended the test. And the cops' remarks that you can't outsmart the machine" was ludicrous and inconsistent, as polygraph tests are not determinant.I liked everything about else this film. It wasn't as involved as Usual Suspects, and the similarities were few. I disagree with Ebert about this being about cleverness for cleverness' sake, and the plot trumping the actors. But I can't hold a candle to Ebert.Roth received a British Oscar and has been nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Ebert says the plot upstaged the actors and that this as a film about actors rather than characters. It's interesting that he's the star of TV's "Lie to Me," in which he's Dr. Cal Lightman, an Expert in Lies and Liars. I liked the ending. What tipped it to me was the mortician with the shiner, though the overly-long camera shot on the face of the vaguely familiar ambulance-driver only sort of evoked a little suspicion.Got it this as my free Blockbuster "oldies" flicks. What a treasure!

This film is one of the very best and very heaviest criminal thrillers I've ever seen. The screenplay is full of twists and turns so even if you watch with much attention you'll have no clue till the end. And in the end the film makes his final turn that amazed me because I've missed some important details - thanks to those who explained it here.Tim Roth is fantastic as James Walter Wayland, it is HIS role with all its contempt, psychotic mind twists and bizarre behaviour. He takes the cops for Untermenschen and, though really being in a very bad and vulnerable position, fools them throughout the movie. The other cast does the job good too.A must-have for every Roth fan and may be interesting to those who dislike Renee Zellweger - she is quite good in The Deceiver.