True Lies

Bad Timing

By the time I finally got to see it, True Lies was already five years old. Worse, it was a summer thriller, and I waited until an October to rent it. To top it all off, the last movie I saw was American Beauty, which dazzled me with a family that I could believe really existed beyond the confines of the screen. That leaves the special effects to impress me, but I think The Matrix has spoiled me for action pictures forever. I realize that it is unfair to criticize movies for not living up to those which follow, but without the sci-fi interest in Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Terminator, I see that even a James Cameron picture can seem a little flat.

Lame Duck

Thrillers live and die by their villains, with an assist from their action sequences. Alan Rickman set the standard in Die Hard eleven years ago and has rarely been equaled since. Art Malik doesn't even come close. He has intense eyes that always show the rage inside, but the script gives him very little to work with. As for the action sequences, only one is really interesting, and that one largely because the bathroom and horse add good comic elements.

In the absence of a proper villain and mind-blowing effects, we have two auxiliary players to fall back on for entertainment, the wife and the sidekick. Tom Arnold is actually not bad as the sidekick. He gets most of the good lines, but I thought the way they scripted him in the interrogation scene was pretty poor. Jamie Lee Curtis certainly heats up the screen when given half a chance, but she otherwise doesn't get to do anything fun.

MPAA Priorities

Unsurprisingly, the MPAA gave True Lies an R. I'm delighted that it has an R because of its extreme violence, and not for it's rather mild striptease. Every once in a while, they get it right.

Nitpicking (Spoilers!)

I admit that this was a big summer action flick, but even on just one go round, I've got an awful lot of nits to pick. What can I say? It's the critic in me.

• What was Harry's exit strategy in the hotel room? OK, he got his wife to do a seductive dance for him which he apparently planned to segue into a nice rendezvous, but how was he going to explain being able to set up the attack forces at the trailer or the interrogation?
• Yes, I'm sure some, if not all, of the maneuvers done with the Vertical Take-Off Landing fighters are possible. I must ask, though, if the fuel capacity of those puppies can really handle the amount of hovering we get on screen. My understanding is that a large proportion of the fuel is used in the take-off and landing. The Harrier has already been up and down once by the time Harry gets in, and he does a lot of hovering, which seems to me like it should've consumed the rest of the tank well before the action is wrapped up.
• One more thing about the fighters bothers me. Given the volume of air that has to be pushed out the chutes to keep the thing aloft, I'd think they'd be actively sucking in a lot of air. At different times, both the daughter and the bad guy are positioned where it looks to me like they'd be yanked through the turbine, but it never happens.