Product Description: A female journalist tries to uncover the truth behind the breakup years earlier of a celebrated comedy team after the duo found a girl dead in their hotel room. Though both had airtight alibis and neither was accused the incident put an end to their act.System Requirements:Running Time: 108 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating: NR UPC: 043396138988 Manufacturer No: 13898
Amazon.com: Director Atom Egoyan's 2005 film Where the Truth Lies is laden with nudity, sex, violence, lies, blackmail, betrayal… and really, what more could you want? Other than some genuine tension, a more compelling story, and better acting, that is. In adapting Rupert Holmes' novel, the Cairo-born Egoyan (Ararat, Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter) has taken on a murder mystery with film noir elements that will leave many viewers wondering exactly "whodunit" until the final few scenes; and while that's surely a good thing, the ride itself simply isn't all that scintillating. Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth star as a (Dean) Martin & (Jerry) Lewis-style team whose principal talents seem to consist mainly of pill-popping, soulless sex with a stream of nubile young women, and hosting an annual polio telethon. Fifteen years after their '50s heyday, journalist Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman), who appeared on the telethon as a child, seeks out the pair to determine why they split up and, not coincidentally, what really happened to the dead girl with whom they had dallied the night before. Bacon is reasonably unctuous as the leering Lanny Morris; but Firth is uninspired as the more elusive Vince Collins, and although Lohman is game, she sometimes seems out of her depth in a role that calls for her to both seduce and be seduced, to manipulate and be manipulated. Egoyan, who also wrote the screenplay, has an eye for odd little details (much is made of Pan Am's first class dinner service, for instance) and an ear for great music (the soundtrack includes tunes by Charles Mingus, Louis Prima, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Funkadelic) and good dialogue ("Having to be a nice guy is the toughest job in the world when you're not"). But the film is curiously tepid; the sex is unconvincing, the mystery lacks a sense of danger, and the resolution is hardly shocking. One wishes that, having dipped into this genre, Egoyan had gone all out and made a film as delightfully sleazy as, say, Basic Instinct. --Sam Graham
A Baffling Low-Key Mystery Shadow Watcher Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
Like his critically acclaimed THE SWEET HEREAFTER, this engrossing film from writer-director Atom Egoyan is a baffling low-key mystery with a surprising, equally quiet, ending.
Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth play a Martin & Lewis-like comedy team that, back in the 1950s, was one of the most successful acts in show business. Then, a beautiful woman was found dead in their hotel suite and, though nobody was ever charged in her death, the team broke up soon thereafter.
Jumping ahead to the 1970s, a young, attractive journalist (Alison Lohman) has a major book deal that will pay Firth a million dollars if he will talk about his relationship with Bacon and, in particular, the murder. Eager to do the book, Lohman gets close...perhaps too close...to both men, which opens some old wounds that leads to violence and, ultimately, the solution to the mystery.
I really liked this movie. It kept me guessing right up until the satisfying conclusion.
Bacon continues to deliver stand-out performances. One of these days, he's going to win himself an Oscar.
- Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008)
Buried Treasure My wife and I were perusing the aisles of HMV looking for bargains. She was looking in the $3.99 bin while I was checking out the second hand offerings. My wife found "Swept Away" and because of her undying allegiance to Madonna I bit my tongue. She waved a copy of this film and I was intrigued not because of the presence of Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth but why I never heard of it. I was further intrigued by the fact that the film was directed by Atom Egoyan who made one of the great films of the nineties, "The Sweet Hereafter". The film just blew me away. Ostensibly the film is about the mysterious appearance of a dead hotel employee in the bathtub of famed fifties comics Lanny Morris(Bacon) and Vince Collins(Firth). For sure the mystery surrounding the possible murder of the girl is explored. The film also wants to delve into the nature of the relationship between Morris and Collins. Onstage Morris is Peck's Bad Boy to Collins' straight man. Offstage the relationship is a little more complex. Both Bacon and Firth are excellent but kudos should also go to Alison Lohman as a writer who is trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the girl's death but also the subsequent breakup of Morris and Collins act. Lohman's Karen O'Hara is more than a disinterested third party but also has a tenuous relationship to the duo. Saying much more about the film would give away too much. If you can find this flick in the bargain bin (or otherwise) plop down the bucks for it.
Alison Lohman Rocks! Alison Lohman's performances always captivate me. The film itself was good (not great). I would've liked to have seen more humor whenever the two comedians were in public (on stage, in a restaurant, on a street). I believe by having much more silly, always leave 'em laughing personas in public (usually accompanied with humility & incredible compassion) would've made the juxtaposition with their truer, darker, all-consuming narcissism all the more striking. And by having film protagonists full of extreme internal contradictions would've made this film completely compelling in every second, leaving the audiences forever guessing which is the real person beneath the masks, building to an bigger surprise ending.
Save your money Tepid, predictable, and boring. It's astounding that Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth could be in a movie this bad.
One curiously tepid film is where this "Truth Lies" WHERE THE TRUTH LIES seems to have all of the right ingredients for a good film whodunit thriller,like Atom Egoyan,screenwriter of THE SWEET HEREAFTER, actors Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon, and a soundtrack by Michael Danna.These are ingredients for a successful recipe.Sorry! This was simply awful.There was no tension, no suspense and despite Firth and Bacon doing their level best to pull off a "Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis" disguised biopic of sorts, actress Alison Lohman, playing reporter Karen O'Connor who takes her clothes off to get to the truth of why the comedy team of Morris and Collins broke up, is quite simply the worst piece of casting and acting I have ever seen.She is dreadful.The film is dreadful.This recipe is a loser.Do not attempt to reheat.The DVD extras are cheap and reveal nothing to aid in understanding why anyone would make this film.It has an extremely cheap look to it.Pass this one.
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