“Casts quite a spell... Without being crude or exploitative it tells its story in a modest, old-fashioned way.” - The Orlando SentinelProduced by Ismail Merchant, The Deceivers is a swashbuckling sidestep from Merchant Ivory’s primmer period pieces of the mid-80s with director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek: Wrath of Khan amp; The Undiscovered Country) at the helm. A pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan stars as an East India Company administrator who infiltrates the ranks of bloodthirsty cult the Thugees (infamous as the origins of the term “thug”), with the help of close friend and local noble Chandra Singh (Shashi Kapoor) and captured Thugee Hussein (Saeed Jaffrey). Roger Ebert called its portrait of Victorian India “a triumph,” while Janet Maslin of the New York Times wrote that it “has an enjoyably touristy flavor and a hint of Gunga Din.”
