True Lies. - movie review

National Review, August 29, 1994 by John Simon

That is still better than True LIes, which, as the title indicates, also dabbles in paradox. Arnold Schwarzenegger pretends to be a dull computer salesman to his bored wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, who pretends to be a dull legal secretary. Their daughter is an odious brat played by an obnoxious actress, and about that at least there is no pretense. In reality, Mr. Schwarzenegger is one of Washington's superspies, in charge of thwarting a powerful gang of Arab terrorists (more like a nation than a gang), the Crimson Jihad, from blowing up American cities with stolen warheads. Miss Curtis is in reality so fed up with her absentee husband ("sales conventions" and such) that she has started a proto-affair with a usedcar salesman who, to get his victims excited, elaborately pretends to be a government spy. There is potential ironic humor in this, but the writer-director, James Cameron (Aliens, the Terminator movies), is not clever enough to exploit it.

Arnold S. has a wisecracking sidekick, played nimbly and wryly by Tom Arnold, who steals some of his thunder, even though the Austrian Uebermensch can do just about everything. He maneuvers a Harrier jet like a Shetland pony, can destroy a legion of heavily armed Arabs with a mere handgun, and is a master of numerous languages, as when a subtitle informs us that he is speaking perfect Arabic. Inasmuch as his English is closer to Kissinger's than to Barrymore's, his French about as French as French fries, that is one subtitle that leaves me skeptical.

The film is tripartite. Part one: violence galore. Part two: domestic drama, as Mr. Schwarzenegger discovers Miss Curtis's apparent infidelity, and first subjects the car salesman (Bill Paxton, a good actor humiliatingly cast) to tremendous abuse, then puts his wife through a couple of endless and debasing tests. When her innocence is established, she can join hubby as a spy junior grade. The film's misogyny is boundless, and is summed up in a tasteless rewrite of Byron's epigram: "Women--can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em," and the salesman's assonantal boast, "The 'vette gets 'em wet." Part three: back to violence galore, with one of the Florida Keys blown away, and husband and wife's final clinch featuring an atomic explosion in the background, a fitting climax for a $120-million venture.

Mr. Cameron's screenplay--a rewrite of the work of three others--steals from everywhere: James Bond, Hitchcock, even the Superman comics. It manages to be mildly amusing at times (Arnold Schwarzenegger on horseback chasing the chief Arab on a motorcycle up to a luxury hotel's roof), but beyond the stunts its efforts are mostly stunted. One is hard put to enjoy even the performances, bolstered by 39 stunt-men and -women, and 4 stand-ins. But there is worse. The enemy here--ill-defined, all-purpose Arabs--is a bunch of gibbering idiots, playing with their expensive weaponry in Three Stooges fashion. I'd like to see one of the currently favored minorities portrayed as such a horde of self-destructors.

Far worse than mere violence is the dehumanization of Them to the benefit of invulnerable Us. The siren song the movie hums into the ears of the susceptible spectator is that They are total incompetents of whom one of Us, with a weapon readily obtainable in the street, can make instant mincemeat for his glory and profit. Not a recommendable message.