Retro Film Review: Liar Liar (1997)

One of many things that separate America from Europe is general population's view of the legal profession. While Europeans dislike lawyers in the same way they dislike politicians, bankers and other white-collar professionals, Americans seem to despise lawyers with the venom that seems unfathomable on this side of the Big Pond. Hollywood was always willing to pander to such sentiments, and Liar Liar, 1997 comedy directed by Tom Shadyac is one example of such pandering.

Protagonist of the film is Fletcher Reede (played by Jim Carrey), workaholic and successful Los Angeles lawyer whose career is built on skilful manipulation of the truth in courtroom. His career is stark opposite of his family life - he is divorced from wife Audrey (played by Maura Tierney) and rarely sees his son Max (played by Justin Cooper). Max gets tired of his father's excuses for not seeing him and makes a simple wish - that his father stop lying for a day. When this wish comes true, it puts Fletcher in impossible situation – he suddenly becomes unable to effectively use his rhetorical skills in the middle of important and lucrative divorce case. Fletcher would now have to find a way to keep his practice and prevent his ex-wife from taking his beloved son to Boston.

Liar Liar was built on the view that the lawyers are inherently dishonest and that they earn their living by telling lies. This view, shared by overwhelming majority of Americans, inspired simple but effective premise of the film. Unfortunately, just like in many similar cases, Hollywood reduced this premise into "high concept" and hired Jim Carey for the title role. Carey is truly talented comedian and, together with director Tom Shadyac, can achieve many things. Here, however, both men failed to overcome basic problem of Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur's script - how to make audience sympathise with the dislikeable protagonist and successfully transform him into better person during the course of plot. Carey and Shadyac try to solve this problem by heavy use of physical comedy and by making Fletcher Reede more pathetic than usual. But, after a while, Jim Carey's character making a fool of himself is becoming annoying and the ultra-sentimental finale doesn't ring a little bit true. All that Hollywood falseness is unforgivable sin for a film that tried, even indirectly, to preach about importance of truth.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on January 16th 2004)

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