by Ben Miller
Arnold Schwarzenegger has never been much of an actor. Instead he's a presence, an ideal; square-jawed, charismatic, with muscles on top of muscles. But, his biggest advantage is how aware he is of his own ridiculousness. His job is to do competent action and spout a cheesy one-liner with the bravado necessary to sell it. His greatest critical successes have leaned into these innate strengths. When paired with a good director and solid co-stars, his films work.
Everything came together with True Lies in 1994. Director James Cameron was riding high after T2: Judgment Day made all the money a movie could make in 1991. He originally entertained the idea of a Spider-Man movie starring Michael Biehn, but couldn’t make it work with 1994 technology. Instead, he went with True Lies...
Schwarzenegger’s self-awareness bleeds through the film as True Lies subverts and ridicules spy movies the same way Scream took on horror films two years later. Cameron’s script makes no attempt at coherence or believability. It’s all about the set pieces and character interactions. But, that’s not what makes True Lies so great. Jamie Lee Curtis is what makes it great.
While Schwarzenegger’s Harry Tasker struts around with a spy’s confidence, Curtis is all jittery energy. The first act of the film does a great job of suckering you into thinking that Curtis’ Helen is nothing but the supportive wife at home. Thanks to a scam-artist spy/car salesman (played to greasy perfection by Cameron regular, the late Bill Paxton), Helen gets to have a bit of her own excitement for a change. Of course, Harry has to intervene using agency resources to keep the excitement up in their marriage.
The set pieces include a memorable bathroom shootout, a horse chase through a hotel, the thorough destruction of a small island village, a harrier jet and a skyscraper, plus a particularly wonderful sequence where a jet intercepts a series of cars on a bridge. But all of these fall by the 'best of' wayside when compared to Curtis’ hotel room striptease.
Let’s get this out of the way because first and foremost…this scene is blindingly hot. Curtis supposedly worked out every day to prepare and it shows. She might have been at her most beautiful in the 80s, but I’ll take True Lies Jamie Lee Curtis any day of the week. The scene originally called for Helen to be nude, but I can’t see how that would have fit with the character.
The sexiness might be palpable, but Helen’s is the real genius. Helen is tasked with seducing a mark and planting a bug on him, but she shows up in a fairly non-sexy dress and her housewife hairdo. Before she heads in, she rips some mesh off her dress, touches up her makeup, slicks her hair back with water from a vase, and heads in. It’s a wonderful bit of physical comedy. From the look she gives herself before heading in to the slip of her shoe at the end. Curtis won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy.
The rest of the cast performs well enough, including a pre-fame Eliza Dushku, 90’s throwback Tia Carrere, and Art Malik as the one-dimensional, yet charismatic villain. Charlton Heston hisses his way through a few brief scenes, and a pre-Clooney Grant Heslov turns up as a special agent who gets his own moment of glory in the climax. Tom Arnold received plenty of acclaim at the time for his comic relief role, and surprisingly, his performance still holds up. His easy chemistry with Schwarzenegger carries the first half of the film.
True Lies remains imminently watchable today. As an HBO staple for years, it might go down as one of James Cameron’s lesser vehicles, but I’m not sure any of his films are more enjoyable from start to finish.