Even regular moviegoers may be surprised that ‘The Deception’ hit the big screen in this country from May 26, 2022. Because even though stars like the Oscar-winning Colin Firth (“The King’s Speech”) or Matthew Macfadyen, known from “Succession”, were there, the stylish war thriller by John Madden (“Shakespeare In Love”) was probably hardly anyone there. the screen.
You can watch “The Deception” starting today, November 11, 2023, on Amazon Prime Video. It’s all about what was probably the biggest spy coup of World War II. Alternatively, you can also click WOW* (formerly Sky Ticket), where the war thriller is also available as a subscription. If you’re interested, you’ll ultimately have to choose one of two options, as ‘The Deception’ hasn’t been released on Blu-ray or DVD in this country (yet).
That’s what ‘The Deception’ is about
The year is 1943: the Allies want to retake mainland Europe from the Nazis. The starting point should be Sicily. But in order to successfully land their own troops there, it would be an advantage if the Germans were to move a large part of the units stationed there in advance. This means that the German generals would have to be led to believe that the Allies had no intention of attacking Sicily.
Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) already has an idea: a dead man with false war plans that point to an invasion far away from Sicily should be dropped over France. If the Germans found the body, they would think that they had only come into possession of the sensitive papers by chance. But the proposal is initially rejected. Until a few months later, naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and his team decide to implement it…
Eye for detail
In the official FILMSTARTS review, “The Deception” received a solid 3 out of 5 possible stars. In his conclusion, our editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen writes: “A tasteful spy drama with three strong stars – although the description ‘tasteful’ here can be interpreted as both praise and criticism.”
It is the great strength of John Madden’s leadership to involve the public in the complex organization of the deception and to focus attention primarily on the meaning of actually trivial details. When everything has to be meticulously structured, even though the chances of success – partly due to all the unpredictability that you simply cannot estimate – are actually always close to zero, “The Deception” can certainly fascinate.
In addition to some truly moving moments, ‘The Deception’ also has some problems. There’s a pathetic voiceover from Johnny Flynn (playing Bond creator Ian Fleming, who was also there at the time) and a superfluous love triangle between Firth, Macfadyen and Kelly Macdonald (“Boardwalk Empire”), which can be seen here in the role of Jean Leslie. Unfortunately, when the film strays from the actual story, ‘The Deception’ is usually slick and terribly well-behaved.