Review of The Good Liar (2019) by Greatmartin — 15 Nov 2019

Go into the theatre, buy your popcorn (or not) sit down for 109 minutes and be entertained by two charismatic, professional stars as they do their job. When you leave the theatre don't start questioning the screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, because some of it didn't make any sense.

Bill Condon directs the two stars in sparkling locations and backdrops whether it be in London or Berlin. Time frames are today and back in the 1940s and, thankfully, the younger actors playing the older ones are real and not movie 'magic'.

Talking about that it seems most movies today have flashbacks when in most cases the movie can be told in linear fashion whereas in this movie we do have to go back to explain the present.

Is it a love story? A story about scams? Con artists? A comedy? Drama? A mystery thriller? Are the people who they say are? It is all of these and yet when you leave the theatre all you will remember is Helen Mirren's smile and Ian McKellen's hangdog face plus their playing off and to each other.

"The Good Liar" is just an entertaining movie, except for two quick violent scenes (unless violence entertains you), that was a perfect way to spend this very rainy afternoon.