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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
When The Truth Hurts, April 19, 2006
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.'
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious Comedy, May 8, 2006
This is a stunning comedy starring Jim Carrey who plays a lawyer, who is incapable of telling the truth or keeping his promises (is this really a surprise!!!). Things make a dramatic turn, when he fails to keep a promise to turn up at his son's birthday party: the neglected son (brilliantly played by Justin Cooper as Max Reede) makes a wish for his father not to lie for just one day. The boy's wish is granted and his dad loses his ability to lie, a tragic affliction for any lawyer. He cannot lie in court as well as to all those around him, like his secretary and mother.
This now honest man displays his comic talents that is bound to set you laughing your lungs out. Carrey is ably supported by his ex-wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) who is now dating Cary Elwes, a simpleton of a man.
This is one of Jim Carrey's best films. His facial contortions, voice and crazy humour stands him out as an outstanding comedian. This is as good as it gets. The director, Tom Shadyac should be applauded for this high quality production.
This movie should not be missed by anyone with a sense of humour and all those fathers who neglect their children for the sake of making money.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pants on fire, October 20, 2002
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.
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