"Secrets of Deception" is so weak that it's laughable, or better saying, it's nearly good at instances and almost becomes a guilty pleasure. Here's
a heavily cliched story that follows every thriller about cheating, infidelity and a series of crimes to follow along. It's pathetic but hilarious,
and the little thrills it offers go between dumb to slightly interesting and gripping.
The Schaefer household isn't a happy one anymore. Husband Jeff (Chris Degner) suspects that Kim (Sydney Black) is having an affair with a
young and cute neighbor (Chad Michael Singer). Jeff is mad and decides to hire some thugs to murder the wife, maybe the lover too. But you know
how those things go. The bad guy only wants the money, without getting involved in the danger of it all, so he hires another type to create the
perfect crime and you can guess that when a third party is involved, a series of mishaps will fall into place until it hits Jeff in the rear. Tom
Sizemore plays one of those guys, if I'm not mistaken, he's a former cop involved with criminal activities and the script offers him a series of
dramatic talks as he chain smokes and drinks all the time.
It's hard not to go into a superficial look at it all. That wife was only in it for the money, as hubby looks a pitiful type that would
never get such a trophy wife by his side, and the helpful neighbor is indeed helpful all the way (but it's not smart enough to use of his good
looks to become a actor/model and get that same money as Kim's hubby). Besides that, it's poorly conceived, weirdly edited and put together, and it's awfully embarassing to watch - but it has a couple of decent moments to be seen (the house attack is one of them).
Anyway, this comes long overdue and with foggy memories - but I do remember plenty of it and it wasn't good. And there's a part of me that
feel the need to suggest this thing because of the ending. I won't talk about it, I won't describe anything. But let's just say that if the story
could have some salvation or become slightly enjoyable to the point of being good, it's the end that kills a great deal. It has to be one of the
worst endings ever written, conceived, edited and thrown in the screen. Maybe that's the idea: just read the premise, think about potential
problems that would come to our "hero", don't watch anything and just rush to the final ten minutes. You definitely won't forget how lame and
absurd those last moments were. I wish I could forget them all. 5/10.
