C. Thomas Howell stars in director Joey Travota's Laws Of Deception as a young man who, after seeing his parents murdered by mobster James Russo, develops a hunger for justice, a trait illustrated when Howell says things like, "Dammit, I have a hunger for justice!" This hunger for justice takes him to law school, where he befriends one fellow student (90210's Brian Austin Green) and is seduced by another (Amber Smith) who pursues him with the dogged, impersonal persistence of a hardened sex-trade worker. They break up under mysterious circumstances, and Howell later becomes a successful lawyer in Florida, a fact Travolta deftly introduces by having Smith say things to him like, "You've become the most successful lawyer in Florida. Everybody knows." But, as the title would indicate, deception is afoot, and nothing is as it seems. In a stunning new twist on the erotic thriller, one of the characters in Laws Of Deception possesses a "deadly secret," a secret that has the potential to change the lives of all those around him. As directed by B-movie fixture Travolta, arguably the most talented of all of John Travolta's siblings, Laws Of Deception is a depressingly uninspired erotic thriller that plays like a long episode of Silk Stalkings. The teaming of Travolta with hard-working has-been C. Thomas Howell (who has starred in nine films in the past two years) and rap superstar Brian Austin Green would seem to be awash in camp possibilities. But the film's few unintentional laughs are mainly drawn from its strange elliptical structure. Howell illustrates the growth of his character by slipping into a husky rasp at seemingly random intervals, while Green demonstates his character's decline by sporting three-day stubble and dressing like an extra from Miami Vice.