Rating: 
Summary: The Truth About Charlie is
Review: a very disappointing movie. We all know Demme can better than this. Tim Robbins: becomes ridiculous, Thandie Newton: still trying, Lisa Gay Hamilton: doesn't make sense, Mark Wahlberg: miscasting, Joong-Hoon Park: OK but suddenly becomes Jason, Christine Boisson: ???. Sometimes remakes of classic movies become disaster and this is the case.
Rating: 
Summary: Exceptionally clever
Review: "The Truth About Charlie" is a remake of the classic "Charade." Judging by the other reviews here, fortunately I have not seen the original, and thus I went in unbiased. The whole film was very entertaining, and my friend and I walked out with grins on our faces. Thandie Newton brings substantial talent and charm to bear in her role as Regina, and I feel she has a lot to offer as an actress. Mark Wahlberg did a passable job as the mysterious "Mr. Peters," although he has yet to fully come into his talents. The members of the supporting cast did a very good job as well; Lisa Gay Hamilton was particularly enjoyable in her role as Lola. The plot: Regina returns home from a Caribbean vacation to find her apartment empty and vandalized, her husband murdered, and herself embroiled in quite a mystery. The resulting turmoil approaches the chaotic, as several new people enter Regina's life, each with a conflicting story about the missing six million dollars Regina's husband seems to have hidden. Naturally, everyone wants the money, and is willing to go to extreme lengths to get it. Regina, even in the midst of an ordeal which could quite possibly endanger her life, is remarkably practical in her dealings with these strange people making her life exceedingly difficult. She doesn't tolerate any BS from anyone, and this seems to disarm them to the point of not knowing what to do - and they all come to like her. In fact, through various experiences, they all seem to reach a point of uneasy friendship, despite being in competition with each other, and occasionally having "conflicts" with each other. The story and the characters are great; the direction, on the other hand, suffers, I'm sad to say. Most of the scenes are hand-held and too claustrophobic. The wobbly shots pan and spin, resulting in a somewhat nauseating experience, unfortunately. But apart from the uneasy ride, Demme does a great job of showing us the rich colors and street life of Paris, and comes up with some unusual angles and beautiful views. The majority of the film, though, is spent very up-close-and-personal with the actors' faces, with much moving about that detracts from the charm of the plot. This is a very amusing film, though, with wonderful moments of humor (both subtle and almost slap-stick,) and some truly creative scenes - watch for the tango scene, and enjoy. If it weren't for the handheld camerawork, I might even give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: What's the Truth About
Review: Thandie Newton, Mark Wahlberg, and Tim Robbins impress in the fast-paced caper from director Jonathan Demme. Based on the 1963 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, Thandie Newton from "Mission: Impossible 2" and Mark Wahlberg really have chemistry in the original film. The film follows the path of a woman who finds that her murdered husband has stolen and hidden 6 million dollars, and there are people after her who want that money. The only problem is, she doesn't know where to look or who to trust. The film is very different from most fast-paced intelligent mysteries, but it falls along that path, being smart, sometimes funny, and very entertaining. Newton gives a great performance that is both charming and attractive. As far as Charlie goes, the truth is, it's an entertaining movie, and that's the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: The Truth About Charlie!
Review: Ahh....a nice mystery. Finally a mystery with so many twists and turns that it's extremly possible to get confused. That was the big problem with The Truth About Charlie. It had to many twists in it. Even though the movie has great actors, actresses, and a great plot it's just a little too confusing. Not the overrall plot but what happens because of it. The movie stars Thandie Newton is a new actress to me. She plays Regina Lambert who is filing a divorce to her husband Charles after only four months. She's on vaction when she meets Joshua Peters who she also met at the airport in her home in France. When she returns to her home she learns Charles sold all their belongings and was murdered. Regina is interveiwed by the FBI and learns Charles had many alias and passports. She and Joshua become friends and he puts her up at a hotel untill her life becomes a least a little normal. She then meets Mr. Bartholomew brillently played by Tim Robbins. He says she has 6 million dollars in her house. She replies "I don't have it" and she gets the response of "Oh yes you do. You just don't know you do." He gives her a list of people to stay away from. Il-Sang-Lee, Emil Zadapec(also played great by Ted Levine) and Lola Jansco. Everything is fine untill she gets a phone call from a man who tells her to stay away from Joshua. The man says that he wants her money. Now Regina doesn't know who she could trust as she also tries to find and give the FBI Charlie's dough. The Truth About Charlie is a fun movie but the only reason I gave it those three stars is because it was a little too confusing. Good thing in the end it all comes together. ENJOY!
Rating: 
Summary: The truth about Chucky is...
Review: That the Chucky movies were better than this. At least they were creepy. Jonathan Demme is better than this. I would be embarrassed. This thing is a mess and it's not worth trying to describe the story. The acting throughout is merely passable. It seemed like Thandie Newton was the only one trying, and she's only okay because of what was given her. I kind of felt sorry for her. Marky--oops--Mark Wahlberg is dry. Tim Robbins is ridiculous. Were they actually paid for this? The rest are like cartoon characters. Even the scenes of Paris were not pleasing. What a waste. There was a scene early on that indicated what kind of movie this would be to me. Mark and Thandie arrive outside the airport at the same time. He goes up to her and re-introduces himself. The camera, for no reason whatsoever, starts spinning around their heads at head level a few feet away while they're talking. No affective reason. Just annoying. It was irritating. This is a film that, if done properly, could have been great. But it's a cheesy romantic mystery that's not so romantic and not very mysterious. It doesn't take itself seriously so neither should you. I wouldn't even recommend it for video. It's kind of sad that it has gotten above 2 star reviews by some on here. What do they think is bad?
Rating:
Summary: An insult to a timeless classic
Review: Mystery films come and go; a precious few stand the test of time. "Charade," for my money the greatest whodunit ever made, is a masterpiece of tone, miraculously blending the disparate elements of suspense, humor and romance more successfully than any film I've ever seen. Enhanced by the dashing beauty and charisma of its two stars, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, the sophisticated wit of its ingenious script, the shimmering beauty of its on-location photography, and, of course, the classic strains of its Henry Mancini score, "Charade" is a movie that one can enjoy no matter how many times one has seen it. I wonder how many people will be saying the same thing about "The Truth About Charlie" - Jonathan Demme's utterly pointless remake of this great film - four decades from now (the original title, "Charade," is actually more appropriate because the story deals with lies, deception and falsehoods in general and not just in relation to that particular character). I have absolutely no idea how anyone unfamiliar with the original work will respond to this film. I can just say that, for diehard devotees of the 1963 Stanley Donen classic, "The Truth About Charlie" is a travesty on every level imaginable. (And, alas, that great Henry Mancini score is nowhere to be found on this version's soundtrack, the first of many strikes against this modern rehash). Although this new version shares the basic plot premise of the original, it has completely eliminated most of the elements that made "Charade" such a world-class, timeless charmer. First of all, in what universe could Mark Wahlberg and Thandia Newton possibly be considered replacements for Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, two of the greatest screen legends of all time? Yes, Ms. Newton has a certain attractiveness and appeal at times, but her one-note expression of pouting bemusement does grow tiresome after awhile. The real trouble, however, comes with Wahlberg, a fine actor who has turned in some impressive film performances in the past, but who is just plain disastrous in this part. His character is supposed to be a suave, debonair gentleman who attempts to win Reggie's confidence after her husband has been murdered for stealing $6 million and she becomes the hapless target of a band of hooligans who want their share and who believe she knows where it is. Wahlberg has never looked more uncomfortable or out of place than he does here, trying to appear "sincere" and "concerned, " but coming across as merely epicene and amateurish. This is, in fact, the worst case of miscasting I have seen in a film in a long, long time. How can one have a remake of "Charade" - of all films! - with two stars who lack charisma and generate zero romantic chemistry when they're together on screen? Even more detrimental, perhaps, is the fact that virtually all the wonderful humor from the original script has been excised, a strange turn of events indeed considering the fact that the original writer, Peter Stone, also had a hand in this venture (here he has assumed the pseudonym of "Peter Joshua," one of the names ascribed to the Grant character in the earlier film, although the name, for no apparent reason, has been inverted for Wahlberg). The very few comic lines that have been retained are delivered so poorly by the actors that we wince every time we hear them. So now we have a remake of "Charade" utterly devoid of humor and romance. What else could go wrong? Well, in the original, the secondary characters all stood out as finely drawn figures in their own right. The three men chasing Reggie for the money - James Coburn, Ned Glass and Arthur Kennedy - had each a retinue of fascinating personality quirks that helped distinguish one character from the other. In "Charlie," the three "villains" not only comprise a blandly homogenous group, but they do not even remain consistent as characters. The most egregious example is Lola (Lisa Gay Hamilton) who spends the entire film bullying and threatening Regina, then inexplicably and in a matter of minutes, becomes some sort of heroine whom Regina comes to love and admire. It makes no sense at all. The concluding scene, in which the characters all meet up together to reveal their true identities and unravel the mystery, is so ham-handed in its execution that one wonders if the filmmakers ever even saw the flawlessly executed Donen original. It is the low point in a film made up of little else but low points. Demme has also injected an idiotic plot strand involving Reggie's husband's insane mother, but the less said about that the better. In fact, one suspects that the sole reason for this storyline is to allow the director to feature famed French director Agnes Varda in a cameo role. Indeed, "Charlie" is filled with all sorts of pointless homages to French culture in general and the French New Wave in particular, including a clip from Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player" and a truly bizarre cabaret scene with famed Jean Luc Godard actress Anna Karina belting out a song while the characters perform a surreal tango that throws us out of the film's world completely. In fact, Demme has tried to recreate much of the style of 60's cinema by employing a camera that rarely ever sits still and a razzle-dazzle editing technique that attempts to substitute style for substance. The effort is too self-consciously cutesy to be even slightly effective. This does, however, bring us to the one undeniable element of value in "The Truth About Charlie": Tak Fujimoto's eye-popping cinematography, which does a superlative job bringing out the colorful richness of the Paris setting. A word of praise to anything or anyone else involved in this production would, however, be excessive. Demme has taken a film that just about defines the word "style" and turned it into a hollow, soulless exercise utterly devoid of wit, suspense, romance and star charisma - all the elements in fact that made "Charade" such a golden, timeless treasure. Avoid the theaters and head to the nearest video store to pick up a copy of "Charade" - and see what a great film is really all about.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth Is It's....... Different
Review: "The Truth About Charlie" stars Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg as Regina Lambert and Joshua Peters, respectively. Regina is getting ready to divorce her husband, Charles, but returns from a trip abroad to find their high-class Paris apartment completely empty (and ransacked?). Confused, the young woman is then taken to the morgue, where she identifies her husband's murdered body. A suspicious Commandant Dominique questions Regina briefly, then let's her go, but not before exposing the deceased Charles to be a man with many passports, names, and appearances. Regina is soon approached by a government official named Bartholomew (Tim Robbins) who reveals even more about her mysterious husband, namely that he stole money from three operatives that now want the money back. Poor Regina is thus sent down an unwanted path of having to uncover the truth about Charlie, if only to save her own skin. Joshua Peters (Wahlberg) always seems to appear whenever he is needed, usually to save the damsel-in-distress Regina, and there is obviously more to him than meets the eye. The three shady operatives, hot on the trail of the money they believe to be theirs, quickly show up, and the threats against Regina soon follow. All of the aforementioned plot points make "The Truth About Charlie" sound as though it is quite a good film, filled with action, intrigue, mystery, and adventure. Well..... sort of, but not quite. Thandie Newton, as Regina, holds the film together. She is young, exotic looking, vulnerable yet strong, and is a rather competent actress. Aside from Newton, only Lisa Gay Hamilton and Joong-Hoon Park (as two of the shady operatives chasing after the money) are really engaging. Mark Wahlberg, alas, hits some rather flat notes as Joshua Peters, the character who screams through his actions "I am not who I appear to be." This is too bad, as it really made me miss the performance of Cary Grant, who played the Wahlberg role in the 1963 movie "Charade", which this movie is based on. The direction of Jonathan Demme is a tad on the odd side. I have read in other reviews that it is influenced by the French New Wave. Being unfamiliar with that particular style, I can make no real comment, only that some of the camera shots and stylistic inserts were a little jarring. For example, whenever the body of Charlie is pulled out for viewing in the morgue, and people look at him, we are given a camera angle which looks at the people through Charlie's eyes. This is distracting, as we know the character to be dead, so it nearly screams "This is a purposefully odd camera angle", an effect which halts a movie for me. During a romantic scene in which Mark Wahlberg plays a CD by famous French singer Charles Aznavour, Aznavour himself suddenly appears in the room, singing from the corner. Yes, you read that right. During some of the more action-oriented scenes, loud Euro-techno music is played. In another scene, Joshua Peters and Regina suddenly become chummy with the three shady operatives, and go to a French disco together. See where I'm going here? Camera angles from the perspective of a dead man, singers suddenly appearing in hotel rooms, loud techno music, and socializing with the enemy tends to quash any hint of danger or intrigue that could be built-up during the course of the film. There are things to enjoy about "The Trouble With Charlie". The fact that it was shot in Paris is evident (Demme includes enough shots of the Eiffel Tower that you get the idea). It was also nice to have mostly European actors and actresses involved (outside of the main roles). Sometimes subtitles were even used. This lent a great deal of authenticity to the feel of the film. And, truth be told, I rather liked *some* of the odd directorial decisions --- they made the movie just quirky enough. Thandie Newton is an actress to keep an eye on in the future, and her casting was an inspired choice. 1963's "Charade" was, for the most part, a foppish sort of film, relying heavily on the charm and wit of Cary Grant, and the beauty and style of Audrey Hepburn. Mark Wahlberg possesses no charm or wit, only muscularly handsome good looks. Thandie Newton, though good in her role, is not enough to carry off a believable romance between the two characters. "The Truth About Charlie" is fun, loud, directed in an unusual way, and sometimes engaging, but it is not as good as it could have been. And that is too bad.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth about Thandie
Review: Thandie Newton has the awkward task of emulating one of the great masters of insouciance--Audrey Hepburn. She succeeds admirably, and not because she copies Hepburn's glamorous wide-eyed performance of Regina, a wife whose husband, Charlie, has mysteriously died and left her with an unscrupulous band of treasure hunters chasing her all around Paris to obtain the whereabouts of his otherwise unknown cache of diamonds. Thandie simply plays Thandie, a curious personality mix of gamine, femme fatale and tomboy as interesting as her outward appearance. Not spectacularly gorgeous, she nevertheless steals the entire show.
Jonathan Demme uses the same close-up camera angles that he used in 'Silence of the Lambs' to make the encounter with each of the characters seem so chillingly personal. Here, the same technique works to elicit empathy with Regina's confusion---after all she is more or less set adrift after her husband's murder and the disclosure of his multiple identities by the police----large talking heads ram information into her brain until it careens with uncertainty and she (and the audience)floats about in a cloud of disjointed impressions which only make sense much later on.
Likewise, the camera jolts the audience through the streets of Paris where we get a colorful taste of the City of Lights' splendid diversity. Sometimes this is nice and sometimes it isn't --- I admit to actually feeling dizzy as the camera catapulted me through the flea market in one scene--may have been I was just tired--the showing I saw started after 11pm. The soundtrack amply enhances the exotic feeling of floating on a cloud of confusion as encounter after encounter leaves Regina more and more perplexed and suspicious as to whom to trust.
The secondary cast successfully adds to the confusion---Regina is constantly forced to face one of their strange talking heads and glean the information that they ambiguously offer. My one complaint was the casting of Mark Wahlberg as the deviously suspect Mr. Dyle. If, as other reviewers suggest, this is just a remake of Charade and Wahlberg was supposed to take on Cary Grant's role---forget it---he isn't smooth enough to even get in the same ballpark. With Hepburn and Grant, the audience got a filmload of chemistry-I didn't feel any of that electricity between Newton and Wahlberg. Wahlberg is just too stiff, uninvolved and perhaps too preppie-ish to even attempt a suave con-man characterization. (My apologies to Wahlberg fans--he just isn't the perfect fit here---I got the impression that the intensity so discernable to the audience was his attempt at getting away from his own personality rather than the portrayal of an astute liar. As competent as Dyle was in his clandestine occupation, Wahlberg should felt secure enough to be able to just let loose and simply enjoy a chance encounter with a lovely young woman during one of Dyle's typical assignments.)
Bottom Line: As this is supposed to be a suspense film, this movie fails--it just isn't particularly suspenseful--there are no adrenaline pumping moments--it does not keep you on the edge of your seat biting your nails; there really is no villan despite all the fingerpointing--I actually liked all the characterizations, villans included--except Wahlberg's---as I believe I was meant to---except for the marvelous setting, this film feels more like a play with a troop of fun actors who obviously loved camping it up in Paris doing an updated version of the classic 'Charade'.
Rating:
Summary: It's "Artistic"! Really!
Review: Who knew? The funniest comedy of the year is currently going around disguised as a thriller called "The Truth About Charlie", directed by Johnathan Demme. Of course, I don't think Demme is aware that his film is a comedy, but that kind of thing never stopped Roger Corman or Ed Wood, and it doesn't stop him either. Ostensibly a remake of the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn classic "Charade", "The Truth About Charlie" follows the basic plot of its predesessor (woman discovers that her dead husband was a con-man who double-crossed some very scary people, and they want their money back), although adding a few touches Demme evidently felt necessary in our day and age (Oooh, look! A woman has a crush on Regina! How modern!) all while incorporating bizarre camera angles with a jerky filming style that is sure to be highly impressive to all film-school wannabes in the audience. The rest of us, however, just suffer as the film completely derails in its first few minutes, never to completely recover. In fact, that may be the most frustrating thing about this movie; every once in a while, for a few brief moments, it actually works. This is especially true during the scenes between Thandie Newton and Mark Whalberg, who have the unfortunate task of taking over for Grant and Hepburn. Surprising, they are actually quite good, have terrific chemistry, and are great fun to watch. Newton strikes a nice balance with her character, coming off as both tough and adorable, and Whalberg sheds his usual stiffness and manages to be sweetly charming (and check out those abs!). In the supporting cast, Tim Robbins stands out with a very funny Walter Matthau imitation (listen to the way he says "Mrs. LAM-bert") and a general hamminess that at least is entertaining. Everyone else doesn't fare quite so well, getting lost in Demme's weird edits, stop-and-go pacing and pretentious style. Where the original was silly but classy, "The Truth About Charlie" is just silly, with a lot of the real laughs unintentional (my sister and I were completely cracking up during the murderer's final confession, not the effect probably Demme was looking for). I think the filmakers were going for an offbeat, quirky feel, but honestly, the movie simply doesn't gel. I give it three stars only because I really did laugh (at it, not with it) and because Newton and Whalberg won me over in the end. Without them, and the pretty Paris locations, this is a no-star movie. View at your own risk.
Rating:
Summary: Low-rent remake of "Charade"
Review: Okay, a lot of reviewers are praising "The Truth About Charlie" for NOT imitating the original movie it's based on, "Charade". As much as I enjoyed the earlier film, I was okay with the fact that there were going to be some extreme differences between the two versions. This was my state of mind as I walked into the theater. But by any measure, "The Truth About Charlie" is that it is simply an AWFUL travesty. One cannot help but recall Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant while watching the dull, amateurish Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlbeg walk through playing the same roles. There's no intention behind their delivery, neither one of them are even able to at least project their own personalities, and Wahlberg is so particularly inadequate as an actor, he makes Keannu Reaves look like Sir Lawrence Olivier. What could have caused director Jonathan Demme to slide so far down from the skills he showed in "The Silence of the Lambs"? He hasn't made a coherent film since then. I was at least hoping to enjoy the Paris scenery in "Charlie", but with the claustrophobic, hand-held camera work, they might just as well have been on location in someone's backyard. The audience was sparse at the fiasco showing I attended, and it grew even more paltry as people discovered they had something better to do and walked out. I, however, stayed til the bitter, pathetic end.
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