When he said I do, he never said what he did.
This month, we’re joined by Rebecca Friedman of Ask an Atheist to revisit the always thrilling and often problematic action-spy comedy that reunited Arnold with director James Cameron, True Lies!
To his wife Helen and their young daughter, Harry Tasker is a boring computer salesman, always away on one of his dull business trips. But Tasker has been living a double life as Harry Rinquest, globe-trotting secret agent and counter-terrorism operative for the secretive Omega Sector. But the lies separating Harry’s two lives crumble as Helen is suddenly thrust into a plot involving a Middle Eastern terrorist cell, stolen nuclear warheads, and a beautiful femme fatale. Now Harry must save the world, rescue his daughter and revive his troubled marriage.
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What a smart, funny discussion. That Iacocca biography, LOL! That’s as archaic as the film’s social mores. Still I really liked this movie when I saw it on release, my main problem being the pacing, which you touched on, as it crawls in the middle. But for action and the little touches, the it’s well done. Thanks all.
Wow, this movie takes a sharp turn into Harry being a complete villain. Violently kidnapping his own wife and interrogating her under the same circumstances. Then giggling with his co-conspirators while inventing a mission that they’re forcing her to do, threatening her family. In between brutalizing a random sleazebag, but someone who’s much less of a sleazebag than Harry is. He didn’t hold a gun to anyone.
Then Harry’s setting up Helen to be raped, before being interrupted by the rest of the plot. There’s never a resolution to what Harry deliberately put Helen through.
I recently watched The Running Man, Eraser and Jingle All the Way for the first time. Watching this, I thought it might be the best one of the four, before it turned out to be the worst of all the Arnold movies I’ve watched. It could’ve been good without those 40 minutes, but it can’t be good after them, especially when they don’t acknowledge it.
This might as well have been a movie about the Joker and his oblivious wife.