By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Review: The Good Liar
The Good Liar is a specific kind of movie. It’s the kind of movie for which I have great fondness. Old-fashioned in almost every way… from its distinct design as a two-hander with its two great stars, to its costumes to its sense of London, to the kind of whodunit that it is, which is to say, the kind they used to make in England in black=and-white. Graham Greene, Carol Reed, and little-known names as Arthur Crabtree, who was a cinematographer-turned-director in the 1930s and 1940s. Obviously, the extreme example of success in the genre is Hitchcock.
It was with great pleasure that I sat down to see The Good Liar. Two actors I think the world of, and have watched for over 40 years. A director whose work I consistently admire. And an old-fashioned tale of crosses and double-crosses, as advertised.
And the film delivers. I had great fun, from start to finish, trying to anticipate what was about to happen next and then being taken places that were unexpected. Are a few of the functional devices a little clanky? Absolutely. But I wasn’t judging the movie on that basis. For me, it was more like watching a Mission: Impossible film or episode. I didn’t have to believe that a guy in a rubber mask with a chip to adjust his voice passed without question for another person. I enjoyed the gag.
This is not to say that you need to turn off your brain for The Good Lie. You don’t. You shouldn’t. You just have to watch it in the context in which it operates. And though film experts don’t like to admit it, many of the movies we most love from the historic past have a tone and style that is not like today’s… and we love the movies more for that reason.
Bill Condon is interested in interpreting the past, not just in period, but the past in cinema. Whether it is Gods and Monsters or Chicago (as screenwriter) or Dreamgirls or Beauty and The Beast or or Kinsey or “Side Show,” which he directed on Broadway a couple years ago, all that makes sepia magic seems to be a key to what intrigues him about the world. If he has a signature as a director, it is that.
The third act turn, which comes after a series of other turns, some meant to trick the audience and some just to inform, takes the film from the expected back-and-forth to somewhere else altogether. And I loved that, as the obvious answers are thrown completely out the window. Then your mind starts working backwards.
It’s not Strangers on a Train or North by Northwest. But it’s not meant to be. It’s ambitions are more modest. More old-fashioned. For me, it was an absolutely delightful way to spend an afternoon in the cinema.
