True Lies (1994)

I'd never seen 'True Lies' before, and had forgotten that it was a James Cameron film. It's an interesting beast of a movie, in looking into it I found an article online (which was behind a pay wall so I didn't have a chance to read it) speculating that 'True Lies' was perhaps the last fully un PC action comedy, and I think a strong case can be made for that distinction. There's a lot in here you couldn't/wouldn't do today, and though a mid 90's film it evokes an even earlier ethos. 

Schwarzenegger's a spy whose family thinks he's some kind of boring software salesman. He and his comic relief partner Tom Arnold are on the trail of some Muslim terrorists, but Arnold (not Tom) becomes distracted when he learns that his wife (a 35ish year old Jamie Lee Curtis) may be having an affair. 

Upon this realization Schwarzenegger misappropriates government resources from tacking the terrorists to figuring out what his wife is up to. It turns out she's mostly just bored with her life, and is ironically falling for a rouse by a used car salesman (Bill Paxton) pretending to be spy in an effort to lure her into bed. Then for around 35 minutes the film becomes chiefly about Schwarzenegger playing the wronged husband, which is admittedly entertaining, and rather ironic given what we found out about the man later. 

This movie makes a number of tonal shifts, and fortunately Arnold's efforts to mess with his wife end up reconnecting things to the main plot in a way that happens so seemingly quick that I couldn't quite follow it. 

One of the things this movie is most famous for is Curtis's sexy dance sequence, which is surprisingly racy. I was vaguely aware of this from when the movie first came out during my Middle School years, and remember being kind of shocked that Jamie Lee would do something like this on film. I was not yet familiar with her heavy earlier involvement in the horror film genera and what I would have mostly known her from at that time was 'Forever Young' and the 'My Girl' films. The means by which Schwarzenegger tricks his wife into this performance is one of the more uncomfortable dated moments in the film. 

The climax of this movie is exactly the sort of thing that Arnold was pocking fun at the previous year in 'Last Action Hero'. My brain working the way it does I couldn't help but wonder how the terrorist standoff on the uncompleted skyscraper would negatively effect the leasing situation in the building upon completion. Though at times problematic this is an entertaining film that I'm glade I finally saw. ***