Product Description

FLETCHER REEDE IS A FAST-TALKING ATTORNEY AND HABITUAL LIAR. WHEN HIS SON MAX BLOWS OUT THE CANDLES ON HIS FIFTH BIRTHDAY, HE HAS JUST ONE WISH, THAT HIS DAD WILL STOP LYING FOR 24 HOURS. WHEN MAX'S WISH COMES TRUE, FLETCHER DISCOVERS THAT HIS MOUTH HAS SUDDENLY BECOME HIS BIGGEST LIABILITY.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47021 in DVD
• Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA)
• Released on: 1999-01-12
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.com
Recovering from the box-office disappointment of The Cable Guy, Jim Carrey gave his fans what they wanted in this good-natured and frequently hilarious 1997 comedy. In a vehicle tailor-made for his verbal and physical antics, Carrey plays a lawyer whose penchant for prevarication is tested when his son makes a birthday wish that his father would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for 24 hours, so help him God! Without his daily defense of white lies, selfish fibs, and outright deception, the helpless lawyer finds himself blurting uncensored truths with total, and totally outrageous, candor. The script is clever enough to milk the premise for all it's worth, but it's Carrey's energy--particularly in a hilarious bathroom scene where he literally mugs himself to delay a trial--that keeps the movie going to its sappy happy ending. The supporting cast includes Jennifer Tilly, Cary Elwes, and Amanda Donohoe. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Pants on fire
Jim Carrey puts so much energy and pure comedic brilliance into this movie that we hardly noticed how corny and hackneyed was the plot or how wearily didactic was the moral lesson for all fathers who neglect their children for the goddess of success. And really we didn't care. What we loved almost as much as Carrey's rubber mouth and oral blockage (like an overheated boiler fighting not to explode) was the premise: a lawyer that can't lie. Now there's an oxymoron! As Carrey tries to explain to his son Max, lawyers need to lie. Actually he says grownups need to lie, which is a truth that we really do not need to exam too closely here. To laugh at something deeply troubling in our nature is a way of dealing with it.

So the genius of this movie is first the talent of Jim Carrey, but second, for kids who come to the realization of adult mendacity for the first time, it is the discovery of comedy as a way to cope. Why do adults need to lie? is a question that a kid can never figure out, and then by the time he is an adult himself (or actually a teenager), he can no longer comprehend how important the question once was. Call it innocence lost, or the socialization process.

My favorite part of the movie is the courtroom scene with Jennifer Tilly dressed oh so sluttily and her adulterous beaux looking like a model for the cover of a romance novel and Carrey in tatters in his [expensive] suit. Second would be the bathroom scene in which Carrey tries to tear himself apart (and seems to almost succeed). His flapping mouth between the toilet seat and the bowl was inspired. Give some credit to director Tom Shadyac, who managed to steer the vehicle with Carrey at the controls, and to writers, Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, who wrote some funny lines.

The great comedians totally let themselves go. They are totally on. They go to extremes and beyond. It's like transcending not just the ordinary, but even the imagined. See this obviously for Jim Carrey, one of the great comedic talents of our time, an original who would have delighted Charlie Chaplin with his extraordinary muggings, his blatant audacity and his superb timing.

When The Truth Hurts
What happens when little Max Reede (Justin Cooper) blows out the candles on his birthday cake and wishes his Dad couldn't lie anymore? Fletcher (Jim Carrey) an unscrupulous lawyer (is there any other kind?) happens to be Max's father. When the birthday wish becomes reality things quickly begin to fall apart for poor Fletcher. After all, what good is a lawyer who can't lie? One thing is certain, Fletcher is about to discover how much the truth can both hurt and heal.

First let me say that I'm not generally a Jim Carrey fan. I find his films inane, vapid and predictable. That along with his excessively loud, over-the-town acting style absolutely drives me crazy. With that said, I must now confess that I've found one exception to that rule. That exception is the unrelentingly hilarious 'Liar Liar.'

All the things that drive me insane about Jim Carrey somehow work wonderfully in this film. It also contains a cast of some of my favorites; Maura Tierney as Fletcher's ex-wife Audrey and Cary Elwes as her new love interest Jerry. I also have to mention the very sexy Krista Allen makes a brief but memorable appearance as the 'girl in the elevator.'

Funny and entertaining
Let me start by saying that I absolutely love Jim Carrey. I think he's a very talented actor, and he always gets me rolling with laughter. I think he's holywood's funniest actor since the late Walter Matthau.
Unfourtunately though, some of Carrey's movies have been disappointments (most notably: Cable Guy and Ace Ventura 2). Whether due to lack of a good running storyline, or due to just over-the-top silliness.
'Liar, Liar', however, does not disappoint. It reveals Carrey in all his hillarious glory. It's got a great cohesive plot about a pathological liar who is suddenly stripped of that ability due to a wish his little kid made. Carrey is very funny, partly because he reminds us so much of ourselves, and how much lies we tell to cover over different parts of our lives.
Watch this movie. It is more than just funny. It is thoroughly entertaining and leaves us with some great life-lessons as well.