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| DIRECTED BY |
| Jonathan Demme
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| STARRING |
| Mark Wahlberg |
| Tim Robbins |
| Thandie Newton |
| Christine Boisson |
| Joong-Hoon Park |
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I�ve had the pleasure of viewing Stanley Donen�s 1963 masterpiece 'Charade,' which this Jonathan Demme film is supposedly a remake of. Nearly no elements of 'Charade' are remade accurately here, however; even the original screenplay has been wrongfully hacked up by Demme and company. What makes �The Truth about Charlie� particularly disappointing to me is the fact that I thoroughly respect Demme�s earlier work � namely the imaginative comedy �Something Wild� and the just about perfect thriller �The Silence of the Lambs.�
Even those who haven�t seen �Charade� will be able to identify the prominent casting faults. Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton don�t belong in a mystery movie, because they ultimately make the movie seem as if it�s only trying to be a mystery. They, along with nearly every other thespian who occupies the screen with them, clown around with jocular dialogue so much that they actually disengage the audience�s willingness to take any of the plot seriously at all. In the original, however, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn manage to display a less contrived amount of humor that is easier for us to accept, while the captivating performances of the villains - James Coburn, Walther Matthau, and George Kennedy - allow the film to retain a substantial feeling of menace. Therefore, the audience may have a few laughs while remaining entranced within the plot�s intricacies. �The Truth about Charlie� completely loses that feeling of menace; its cardboard characters just aren�t compelling in the slightest.
And even if I decided to analyze �The Truth about Charlie� without comparing it to �Charade,� it wouldn�t hold up even on its own level. Demme � for some incomprehensible reason � decided to condense his remake by making use of fast-paced editing and kinetic camerawork. This certainly does allow his film to play substantially faster than the original, but in doing so it also loses pretty much all of the thoughtful pacing that made �Charade� such a dramatic film.
Demme makes it painfully clear to us that he admires the films of Francois Truffaut � he spontaneously edits in random footage, just as Truffaut did himself. But what exactly is �Shoot the Piano Player� doing in Demme�s picture? At least Truffaut�s spontaneity served a purpose. There is, nonetheless, one very impressive sequence in �The Truth about Charlie� that involves Wahlberg sprinting through the city with one of the villains, culminating with a scramble up a spiraling staircase; Demme�s aggressive direction certainly is fun to watch here. But by this time I couldn�t stop wondering about why Demme even wanted to try to remake an already fantastic film; it�s a pointless endeavor. To sum it up - for all of its ineptitude and insufficiency, �The Truth about Charlie� doesn�t deserve to be even categorized with �Charade.�
