Deceived


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Details At A Glance

General
Extras
Category Thriller Theatrical Trailer(s) None
Rating Other Trailer(s) None
Year Released 1991 Commentary Tracks None
Running Time 103:47 minutes Other Extras None
RSDL/Flipper No/No
Cast & Crew
Start Up Movie
Region 2,4 Director Damian Harris
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Goldie Hawn
John Heard
Case Amaray
RRP $34.95 Music Thomas Newman

 
Video
Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None MPEG None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Dolby Digital 2.0 
16x9 Enhancement Yes Soundtrack Languages English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio ?1.85:1
Miscellaneous
Macrovision ? Smoking Yes
Subtitles Dutch
English for the Hearing Impaired
Annoying Product Placement Yes, mildly
Action In or After Credits No

Plot Synopsis

    I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Deceived. The blurb on the back sounded enticing, so into the player it went. Goldie Hawn is Adrienne Saunders, an art restorer, wife and mother. She loves her husband, Jack (John Heard), dearly. In short, she has an idyllic life.

    However, all is not well. A murder at the museum where Jack (a Curator of Antiquities) works has suspicion falling on everyone, including Jack. Telltale signs that all is not as it seems leads to Adrienne accusing Jack of having an affair which leads to his storming out. Jack is apparently killed in a car accident. All of a sudden, all is not as it seems, and Jack turns out to be someone entirely different to the man that Adrienne thought she knew.

    All-in-all, I quite enjoyed this thriller. The bad guy is clearly demarcated from the word go, the suspense is well-crafted, the shocks are shocking and not excessive, and there are no annoying twists to the plots, just a paced revelation of the pieces of the puzzle.

Transfer Quality

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. I was unable to locate an authoritative statement in regards to the theatrical aspect ratio of this movie.

    This transfer suffers from a lack of sharpness and is also quite grainy in appearance. I suspect that some of the shots were deliberately created this way to show both Goldie Hawn and John Heard in a more appealing light, but nonetheless the transfer is lacking in this area. Shadow detail is limited, and low level noise occasionally intrudes into the darker parts of the image.

    The colours tended to be slightly oversaturated and as a consequence some colour bleeding of red occurred, particularly during the opening scenes of the movie.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts were not at all troublesome, probably because of the soft nature of the transfer, though there was some image wobble during the opening titles and closing credits. Film artefacts were occasionally present but there was nothing particularly distracting about them.

    Dutch subtitles defaulted to ON with this DVD which was annoying. The packaging omits any mention of this subtitle track, only mentioning the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles.

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this DVD; English, French and Italian, all Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded.

    Dialogue was always easy to understand and quite clear.

    There were no audio sync problems.

    The score by Thomas Newman was excellent in creating the appropriate atmosphere on-screen, though it was not present all that frequently. In fact, this is one of the better musical scores that I have listened to in this regard.

    The surround channel had little to no use during this movie except by the music until the climactic end sequence, which made excellent use of ambient sound to increase the tension of the sequence.

    The .1 channel was moderately used without being excessive.

Extras

    None.

Menu

R4 vs R1

    This disc is unavailable in Region 1.

Summary

    Deceived is worthy of consideration as a reasonable thriller.

    The video quality is not great but not bad either.

    The audio quality is unremarkable.

    There are no extras.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras  
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
4th January 2000

Review Equipment
DVD Pioneer DV-505, using S-Video output
Display Loewe Art-95 95cm direct view CRT in 16:9 mode, via the S-Video input. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital AddOn Decoder, used as a standalone processor. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Amplification 2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer
Speakers Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer