Sunday 22 January 2012

True Lies

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Year:1994
Country of origin:USA
Director:James Cameron
Genre:Awful actioner
Starring:Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Art Malik
Rating:1/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111503/
Tagline:When he said I do, he never said what he did.
Favourite line:None worth mentioning

What a shocking, shocking film.
It starts off reasonably well, playing as a vague American pastiche of all things Bond, with Arnhult playing the charismatic lead.
Ski chases, gun fights and even a motorbike / horse chase through a plush hotel (even into the lifts!) make for a tongue in cheek and rather entertaining first half hour or so, leaving you thinking 'I might rather enjoy this'.
Then the wife turns up, and everything goes wrong.

Here's the plot:
Arnie is a spy, but his wife doesn't know it. She thinks he is a computer salesman, leading a dull life in a dull office. She is kind of seeing a man on the side, who claims to be a spy, though in reality he is a used car salesman (see what they've done there?!?). When The Arnster starts to suspect she may be having an affair, he leads an assault aquad into their clandestine meeting, and fools the wife into thinking she has to work for a black ops unit of the American Government, else face imprisonment for aiding a known terrorist.
Nice joke, eh?
Whilst on assignment playing a prostitute that Arnie makes dance for him, real terrorists kidnap both Arnie and The Wife, meaning their True Lies must be revealed.

Well, what a load of old tits.
A bloated, shockingly expensive demonstration of everything that is wrong with Hollywood.
Can we afford to blow up that bridge? Yep, let's do it then!
Can we afford to use Harrier Jump Jets in the final sequence? Yep, let's do it then!
Can we afford a writer who can make this script snappy, witty and intelligent? Yep, let's...well, let's not bother with that bit. James Cameron can write it, he seems to think he is amusing.
Ridiculously long, this outstays it's welcome even before the hour and a half mark, and there's still another hour to go after that.
I actually stopped watching for twenty minutes or so and played guitar instead. Simply put, one of the worst films I have seen in a while.

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