Absolute Deception

Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. heads up the small cast in the thriller Absolute Deception.  Unfortunately, there will be no awards for this television caliber movie with a predictable story and laughable CGI effects.

While working near the Gold Coast in Australia, FBI agent John Nelson's (Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire) key informant is killed.  The killers only leave a finger behind which Nelson is able to analyze and connect with the identity of a man with a New York driver's license.  Perplexed, Nelson heads to New York to make sense of it all.

In the Big Apple, Nelson meets with his informant's widow Rebecca (Emmanuelle Vaugier, Saw II) to inform her of the bad news.  The pair is shocked when Rebecca reveals that the man once known as Miles Scott reportedly died two years earlier in an auto accident.  Nelson soon makes his way back to Australia to continue the investigation while Rebecca decides to tag along in hopes of discovering what actually happened to her husband.

As you can probably tell from the description above, the story is a bit implausable and turns predictable by the film's conclusion.  Everything from the stiff performances from most of the actors involved to the downright ugly title sequence screams television movie.  Outside of a few roles, Gooding hasn't really had a decent outing since he won the Oscar playing football player Rod Tidwell (unless you're my grandmother, in which case Snow Dogs remains the highlight of his career).  Absolute Deception certainly won't cure the career slump as Gooding's character and portrayal of it comes across as a poor man's Denzel.

One thing I wasn't expecting was the inclusion of CGI.  As a thriller, Absolute Deception features very little action in the first place yet explosions and gunshots are all done digitally.  The gunshot effects are akin to something seen on SyFy films and just destroy any sense of believability the film was clinging to.  The DVD contains no special features, but there is an UltraViolet digital code included in the package.  I cannot justify a purchase, let alone a one night rental.  Fans of Gooding should rewatch his work in American Gangster or wait for the upcoming Machete Kills instead.