Director Jonathan Demme negotiates the back streets of Paris for this remake of Cary Grant's 60s romantic thriller "Charade". It's a clumsily self-conscious attempt to recapture the whimsy of earlier movies like "Something Wild".
Thandie Newton buckles under the burden of carrying the movie as Regina, the unwitting femme who falls under suspicion when her husband Charlie (Stephen Dillane) turns up dead.
Her relentless grimacing suggests she's traumatised to discover that Charlie had been leading a double life. He was mixed up with a gang of mercenaries, who put the squeeze on her for a few missing millions.
With Regina's life in peril, Mark Wahlberg emerges as her knight in shining armour. But (shock, horror) he's not who he appears to be.
You'd hope Wahlberg would turn out to be someone vaguely interesting, only it wasn't in the script. Clearly, drama was the last thing on Demme's checklist, since both character and plot are as thin as the paper they were shamelessly written on.
Instead, he prioritises the glamorous location and superfluous surrealism - the worst of it involving crooner Charles Aznavour popping up for a bit of a sing-song at inopportune moments.
It's laughable, but it's hardly a comedy. It's devoid of suspense, so it doesn't qualify as a thriller either.
Demme lazily tries to convince us it's a postmodernist gem, exploiting self-referential moments - "I'm really just an actor being a bad substitute for Cary Grant," Wahlberg states at one point. He's right. But that doesn't make it OK.
To call Newton and Wahlberg wooden doesn't even come close. But then, even a couple of short planks rubbed together could generate more sparks than these two.
When you add it all up, "The Truth About Charlie" is a nonentity. Perhaps just evidence that somewhere on the Parisian streets, Demme got lost up his own back alley.
"The Truth About Charlie" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 16th May 2003.
The Truth About Charlie (2003)
