The trailers make it look like just another whodunit action flick with two beautiful actors to put bums in seats, but The Truth About Charlie offers a slight twist to the formula.
The Truth About Charlie is the story of Regina (Thandie Newton), a young woman who comes home from a holiday to find her husband dead and their home and accounts cleaned out. Despite Regina’s claim to have no knowledge of where her dead husband’s fortune is, some very dangerous characters seem very convinced she has it and ought to hand it over to them.
Mark Wahlberg plays Joshua Peters, who conveniently arrives just when Regina is most alone and desperate. She falls for him only to learn (surprise, surprise) that his motives are not as clear or as gentlemanly as they seem.
The movie is a remake of Stanley Donen’s 1963 film Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, which has the same spies, lies and sexual tension as Charlie but blends them better. While Regina is almost incredibly naïve in both versions, it’s still easier to believe her buying the gentleman-helping-a-lady-in-distress act when the act comes from ultra-smooth Cary Grant.
The Truth About Charlie is most enjoyable when it breaks with the spy film’s conventional seriousness and pokes fun at the genre. Unfortunately, the original appears more willing to risk this self-satirizing and ends up pulling it off much better. These same moments in Charlie are more abrupt and surreal, and often occur at the expense of the story’s logic. One scene in a tango bar is especially funny, but the absurdity is a little jarring in the middle of all the serious spy stuff.
The bottom line is, The Truth About Charlie might make a good rental, but only if the video store in your area doesn’t carry Charade.
