by Scott Thomson
Two Grand High thesps of the most esteemed order playing against each other in a cunning game of deceit. A surefire winning recipe, right? Maybe not.
Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren are most certainly having a gay old time together, practically purring in each calculated exchange with one another. It is not often enough that we get to see the screen shared by a pair of Britain’s most beloved (capital ‘A’) Actors but this is far from enough to lift The Good Liar from the escalating preposterousness that clouds the fun within. It reads like an “oh my God what if we did this thing...” kind of idea conjured by a drunken playwright after too many Merlots round Sir Ian’s pub on a Saturday evening. The result is a film perhaps best enjoyed in a similar state...
Ian McKellen is Roy, a con artist in his twilight years who scours internet dating sites for unsuspecting widows with plans to extract whatever fortunes they have been left with. To his delight he thinks he has hit the jackpot in meeting the quietly successful Betty (Mirren) who confounds Roy when feelings materialise, muddying the kind of job that has always come so easily to him. This will read to many as the makings of a fantastic day out at the pictures, but the sleazy undertone throws the film into uncomfortable territory.
Jeffrey Hatcher’s script is at times so barmy that it staggers between head-scratchingly off and unintentionally hysterical. Most memorably when questioned about the absence of his son at one stage Roy proclaims “I don’t agree with his lifestyle...he’s a kitchen designer” as if this is supposed to make any fathomable sense. Is it a ludicrously off-note gay jibe, or a deep held disregard for the art of breakfast-bar assemblage? It is also worth noting that the flinchingly frequent use of the C-bomb peppered throughout may throw off the audiences that will inevitably gather for the calibre of these marquee names. Although admittedly the bizarre force at which this choice language is crowbarred in can provoke burts of unexpected hilarity, especially when spat out in McKellen’s most spluttering bellow.
The mystery of The Good Liar is rather thinly veiled by not-so concealed glances across dinner tables and ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ levels of overripe line deliveries. So when it does decide to uncover it’s hidden secrets, they are jarringly off tone with the rest of the action. Although it endeavours to involve topical points of interest in its unravelling, you wind up wishing you were watching something more comfortingly familiar. McKellen and Mirren are understandably having a hoot and at times give us much more than what they are working with. Yet it's hard not to naturally wish for so much more given that it's their first time on-screen together. This is less the Sunday afternoon magic it could’ve been and more of a late night absurdity. C -
Also Opening or Expanding This Weekend
Ford V Ferrari - Reviewed
Charlie's Angels
Honey Boy - Reviewed