The Good Liar review – preposterously fun thriller

Sometimes a thriller comes along that’s so ludicrous you can’t help but be won over by the sheer audacity of its plot mechanics. The Good Liar, the latest entertainment from seasoned, journeyman director Bill Condon, is one such film: it spends the sum of its runtime bypassing all credibility to the point that when its big “twist” finally arrives the rest of the movie – already too preposterous to take seriously – is made to seem like kitchen-sink realism in comparison.

The premise is, admittedly, a delicious little kernel of possibilities: Roy (Ian McKellen) is a career criminal with a shady past whose small but financially sizeable schemes have kept him in pocket for years. His latest target is Betty, played by Helen Mirren, whose modest life in the English suburbs conceals a more interesting truth: she’s incredibly rich. Roy engineers a dinner date after they first meet online, and suddenly, long before it seems plausible, this pair are living together in Betty’s bungalow. Roy’s plan is made more difficult, however, by the looming presence of Betty’s suspicious grandson (Russell Tovey), who instantly suspects this mysterious newcomer of foul play.

The Good Liar is notable for the fact it’s the first film to pair McKellen and Mirren on the big screen, and watching them you’ll wonder why it’s taken this long to get them in the same room. Both actors share great chemistry and are in total command for every scene, though McKellen has more to do and does a fantastic job switching between the gentle bumbler with a bad knee that is Fake Roy and the more streetwise con artist that is Real Roy, a man who uses phrases like “tickety-boo” and throws the C word around with casual abandon (when’s it not fun to hear an esteemed Shakespearean actor using that one?)

Before long our twisty tale reveals a plan to send us off to a slew of desirable European cities – Paris! Venice! Berlin! – and suddenly the old-fashioned blend of false identities and far flung locations has steered us straight into Patricia Highsmith territory. Though, sadly, we never make it to France or Italy, The Good Liar is most at home in its German section, where the stage is set for a game of cat and mouse in which it’s never made quite clear who’s the cat and who’s the mouse. You know that nobody is telling the truth – Condon doesn’t exactly try to conceal the fact that Betty is just as untrustworthy as Roy – but the real appeal is trying to figure out why.

Such airport paperback antics are probably far better suited to the page – makes sense, given The Good Liar is based on a page-turner of the same name by Nicholas Searle – and will only prove digestible to those willing to take the whole thing with a pinch of salt (or maybe an entire shaker). When the inevitable rug-pulling denouement does come, it feels a little too much like letting the air out of the tyres. Neither shocking or clever enough, it’s a reveal that’s too serious for a story that has – up to this point – unravelled as pure pulp.

Does The Good Liar know it’s ridiculous? Yes and no, is the answer. A film that relies so heavily on the idea of hefty portable devices transferring large sums of money between bank accounts – in 2009, no less – surely understands it doesn’t exactly resemble reality. But weighty flashbacks to war-torn Germany (all thrillers of this kind seem to fall back on stories about war crimes as though it were contractually obligated) hit with a seriousness that implies Condon wants us to receive all this with at least a degree of earnestness. If you can handle the mess of a plot, questionable structure, and twists that make no sense, however, The Good Liar is a yarn that can be endured – even enjoyed – in spite of its ludicrousness. McKellen and Mirren are clearly having lots of fun, and their good time proves infectious.

★★★☆☆

By: Tom Barnard

Get The Good Liar showtimes in London.