Review of The Truth About Charlie (2002) by Sheril J — 22 Jun 2011

Tak Fujimoto and Jonathan Demme have shot this a lot hipper than anyone half their age could. Thandie Newton is great & funny, magically cute at few moments, and beautiful the rest of the time. She would make a fine, and definitely sexier, replacement for Audrey Hepburn in several films.

The writers seem to have assumed that since no one can compete with Cary Grant, Mark Wahlberg shouldn't have good lines to work with. The homages to the French New Wave are clever and prettily situated, but they dispel the suspense atmosphere, and -- for me -- make the movie look like it's catering to anglophone snobs who can't stand a mere thriller.

And Demme doesn't want to do a mere thriller that's hipper and more involving than usual. He casts the bad guys as an ethnic rainbow, and it turns out none of them are really bad, just misunderstood and misunderstanding other people.

(Scary hook-hand guy from the original is now just a big lunk who requires electroacupuncture so he doesn't expire from cardiopulmonary stress -- I'm serious.) Each of the bad guys even hates violence; the only one comfortable with it is a betrayed 50s straight-arrow military type that was too unhip to be in the original Charade.

Demme's kind of liberalism seems to aspire not only to banish all sense of menace from society, but also from its movie genres. (Star rating for Tak Fujimoto and Thandie Newton.).