#60: True Lies

Release Date: July 15th, 1994

Format: Streaming (Hulu)

Written by: James Cameron

Directed by: James Cameron

3.5 Stars

True Lies had a $100 million dollar production budget (the first production to hit that mark all-time), it had arguably the world’s biggest action star all-time, and it had a director only rivaled by Spielberg in his ability to craft a large-scale, crowd-pleasing blockbuster Hollywood movie. 

And I’m not sure anybody under 30-years-old has seen this movie or cares.

Why not? Why did this movie’s legacy die, whereas Terminator 2 and Titanic (the two films that bookend True Lies) went immediately into cinematic immortality in the public consciousness.

I did notice a couple flaws while watching it. The major flaw for me is that this movie lacks a compelling, bigger-than-life villain. Die Hard had Hans Gruber, Face/Off had Castor Troy, Con Air had Cyrus the Virus, and Speed had…Dennis Hopper. Shit, even James Cameron’s own Terminator 2 had T-1000. Point is, if you’re making a blockbuster ‘90s action movie, your villain is as important as your hero. In True Lies, we get a pre-9/11 central casting random middle Eastern guy speaking in angry Arabic. He’s more Team America villain than Hans Gruber.

Another flaw is that this is also clearly a work of an angry middle-aged guy. Cameron, if rumors are true, is a notorious asshole on set and was coming off his third divorce during the writing of True Lies, this one with fellow director Kathryn Bigelow. With this in mind, when you’re watching Schwarzeneggar and Tom Arnold interrogate Jamie Lee Curtis to see if she’s having an affair at the midpoint of the movie, and then putting her through the ringer with fake missions and controlling her life to pretty questionable lengths, it definitely feels like the work of a man who has an ax to grind with a few ex-wives. 

These flaws are fatal when determining if True Lies is an all-time great action movie (it’s not), but they do not get in the way of it being an all-time really really really good action movie. It’s really funny (Tom Arnold is killing it as ‘90s comedic sidekick guy), the performances and casting work completely (Arnold is at his most charismatic and Curtis pulls off a demanding performance that has her transition from frumpy housewife-to-total smokeshow secret agent), and the action set pieces are awesome. Watching the harrier jet scene and the bridge blowout scene, you have no doubt that the $100 million budget was necessary. 

And the horse and motorcycle chase scene through the city? It’s in the running for greatest chase scene in history. And that’s no small feat.

And all of this action is in the mostly pre-CGI era. These are real explosions, real vehicles, real squibs,  and real stuntmen doing real stunts. There are some great stunts involving Arnold’s character where it’s clearly a stuntman in a wig and padded suit doing the stunt. Instead of being a detraction, it made me nostalgic for what action movies used to be. 

So here’s a movie without much of a legacy. It never got a sequel. For Cameron, it was preceded by a much more successful movie and succeeded by a much more successful movie. But damn it it’s a fun action movie.

Oh! Also! This has an all-time great performance from Bill Paxton as a weaselly used car salesman trying to hook up with Jamie Lee Curtis. If nothing else, enjoy it for that.