The Truth About Charlie

The truth about The Truth About Charlie is that it is a seriously mediocre attempt by an Academy Award-winning director (Jonathan Demme) to remake a mediocre Hitchcock rip-off (1963’s Charade) by another Oscar winner (Stanely Donen). The impossibly beautiful Thandie Newton, who worked with Demme in Beloved plays a woman who realizes after her husband’s death that he was not at all what he seemed. A mysterious stranger played by Mark Wahlberg shows up to claim the dead man’s now-missing money, which he claims was his, and involve Newton in a high-speed chase-and-shoot in which identities keep switching and Europe is seen through the lens of a action-filled travelogue. Wahlberg is even more stoic here than he was in the universally loathed remake of Planet of the Apes, which is to say he’s a non-character in fancy clothes. The film also wastes the talents of actual actors such as Tim Robbins and Lisa Gay Hamilton. Ho-hum.