The Whole Truth

I gave this a five, generously ( only for a twist I hadn't thought was coming, because I was so bored that I wasn't paying much attention until the twist was easily apparent ), and it deserves far less, for poor direction, acting, plotting (or rather, plodding), and not even bothering to try. I was as bored as the actors aimlessly strolling through their scenes like they were civil service employees doing the absolute minimum till quitting time. There is a great noir story here, and someone must have known it because they had Keanu attempting a noirish narration, but when you have a cast that couldn't care less about a script written by someone who apparently never saw any of the great nouveau noir films from the '80s or '90s, much less anything classic from the '40s or '50s, you wind up with a flat, boring story that is just a sad case of what could have been.

Okay I made a list of all the things I found wrong with this movie. 1. What was up with the narration? Was he lying to himself or what? Who was he narrating for? It's supposed to be his thoughts spoken out loud, but that makes no sense if he was lying? 2. Why did Ramsey want the kid to speak so badly? Surely this was the best possible outcome for him? What did he want the kid to say? Confess that it wasn't him and pin it on the mum instead? How would that help anyone? 3. How on earth did no one question why there was blood on the handle of the knife? That just seems so unlikely from one stab and made it so clear it was staged. 4. How on earth was he found not guilty? They based that off of one single testimony which happened to be from the guy on trial. Even when he was asked "were you in danger at that moment" he couldn't give a straight answer at first. Makes no sense. 5. Why didn't the kid change lawyer? Was he really so confident that he could outsmart a lawyer who clearly wanted him to get convicted? 6. Why did Ramsey kill the dad??? The dad didn't even know he was one who had an affair with his wife. Like what kind of psychopath kills his friend just like that. And how convenient that his watch fell without anyone noticing. I thought they were caught in the act by the husband and that his clothes were on the floor and he then forgot his watch or something. THAT would've made much more sense if Ramsey then killed him in self defence in the heat of an argument. Instead of planning a murder in like five minutes for no reason. 7. And what kind of cold hearted sociopath of a mum decides to pin the crime on her innocent son? Especially when she was happy to take the hit when Ramsey asked her to, why not do the same for her son? She could've admitted that the son was lying and said that she killed him in self defence like she had already planned. She showed so little emotions during the whole film too. I guess that made her and Ramsey the perfect psychopath couple, but still wth. It suddenly at least makes sense why her husband called her stupid all the time. All in all, it was watchable because it was just simply too unbelievable of a plot. That does not mean I recommend this movie to anyone though.

You have a defendant, a victim, a prosecutor, a judge and a jury. Then you have the defence. He has to come up with an argument for different kind of themes and topics that's being brought up: emotions, rationalities, causalities, effects, subjects, objectives, helpers, opponents. His dexterity is in co-authoring a story against the prosecutor that a jury sympathises with. It's like a game of chess. And if you are clever to follow the story that's being authored on the fly, you feel like getting warmer, getting to figure it all out. Except, you're wrong. And you were naive and too self-confident. Witnesses lie. They "all lie." And now, it's too raw for you to stomach.

Extremely tedious, with poorly written dialogues and crappy acting. Renee Zellweger,usually a fine actress, seems bored and annoyed playing this nonsense. Reeves is at his usual blankness. The actor who plays the defendant is just awful, a lizard has more facial expression than him. He's probably related to the producers. To be short, the plot twist in the end is ridiculous: if they already had the whole story made up (Renee killed his openly abusive husband in self-defense, after years of beating), why the hell did she let his son take the blame, even knowing that he would probably go to jail for life? What a nice mom! BTW, it seems really easy to get away with murder: he abused me, that's it, not guilty! Just terrible, don't waste an hour and a half of you life watching this. You have been warned

The movie starts out as a mysterious "who done it," and is able to keep this mystery going for most of the movie. More than once I went back and forth in my mind between who I thought was the real culprit, and at the end I can say that I was actually somewhat surprised. Though to be fair I must say that the twist isn't all that huge; it's more of a twist because the writers withheld some key evidence from the viewers until the very end, but they did hint at it once or twice. The Whole Truth is a slow burner. There's never much action taking place, and there's not really a whole lot of depth to any of the characters. The acting is well done however, and I thoroughly enjoyed Keanu Reeves, Renée Zellweger, and Gabriel Basso. While I also enjoyed Gugu Mbatha-Raw's performance as well, I didn't find her character all that necessary to be honest. I'm guessing her character was just meant to be sort of a distraction, and she was. So there you have it. The Whole Truth is by no means a blockbuster. It's not a twisting thriller.... but it is a decent watch. I enjoyed it.

This is a pretty good courtroom drama, maybe not right up there with "Anatomy of a Murder" or "Presumed Innocent", but with enough twists and turns to make it stand out from the crowd. If the film reminds me of any it is "The Lincoln Lawyer" with Matthew McConaughey. Without giving too much away, the story involves the murder of Boone Lassiter (John Belushi) a prominent lawyer, and the attempts of another lawyer, Richard Ramsay (Keanu Reeves), to defend the person accused of the murder, Boone's son, Mike Lassiter (Gabriel Basso). The film has an interesting cast including Renée Zellweger as Loretta Lassiter, Boone's wife. Renée Zellweger is an amazing actress who dissolves into her characters, she does it so well here that I didn't recognise her at first. Keanu Reeves is fine as Richard Ramsay. I thought his narration was a little heavy-handed at first, but later we see how it helps set the scene for the revelation at the end. Beautiful Gugu Mbatha-Raw, so memorable in "Belle", is a surprise as a young lawyer overcoming past issues. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but after watching hundreds of crime movies and series on television, I feel that stories with a low murder count often have more weight than serial killer dramas with corpses all over the place. Just look at any of the really good series such as "Wallander", "Jesse Stone" or "Vera" to name three; it's usually only one murder, two at the most, allowing for more complex character and story development. Shows with big murder counts, unless based on real cases, often lead to over-the-top dramas with extreme, unbelievable behaviour. "The Whole Truth" bears this out. It is tricky with an appealing cast and a classy score by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, which helps set the mood for this fairly intimate movie, set for the most part in either the courtroom or the bedroom where the murder took place. It may not raise the bar to the heights of the great courtroom dramas, but "The Whole Truth" gets you in and keeps you there until it delivers a killer blow at the end.

After she said she in a press conference years ago that she was finished at 40 with acting lol Must be skint and needed the money to pay for all that plastic surgery.Seriously though, I didnt know it was Zelwegger until someone told me. Dont get me wrong she looks very good for her age but she looks like someone totally different and her acting was instantly forgettable as was the whole awful funeral dirge of a movie. Sadly for her this wasnt even good enough to be an episode of a lame tv detective series , awful script, Keanu doing his usual wooden performance and stilted voice acting; dont get me wrong I liked him in the much better John Wick movies but he could have been any actor in this. The story was not unusual or remarkeable and that is what is needed these days after landmark movies like "7" and Saw - the audience is expecting something that will tweak their brain and not some old formulaeic straight to dvd wet weekday afternoon movie for stay at home mums/or dads to while away the hours. I was half expecting Adrian Paul and Jane Seymour to turn up lol If this is Renee's comeback movie then I am afraid she should not have come back lol Some people seem to think the ending was unexpected but both of us figured it out within the first 15 mimnutes of the movie - for a movie to be a good one thats a bad start. I just couldnt get over Keanus awful stilted voice droning on and on and on - its as if he was just picking up a cheque and bored with the whole thing!

I figured this one out within the first 30 minutes, and got confirmation a little later in the film. The twists were fully expected. Characterization was sorely lacking, as was the rest of the script. One day, I'm hoping Keano takes some acting lessons. This was a good movie for him, though, because the rest of the cast acted so poorly, that he was slightly better than they were. The judge was particularly stiff and unbelievable. In all, this was an hour and a half of my life which is gone forever.

This film is about a teenage guy who is on trial for murder of his own father. The family friend is the defense lawyer who tries hard to defend him, but this proves very difficult as the teenage refuses to talk. "The Whole Truth" is a very intense courtroom drama. It captures my surgeon throughout the film, as there is much suspense and mystery in the story. It is an hour into the film that the teenager finally talk, and when he does, it freezes me and I find myself unable to breathe or move because what he says has so much impact on the situation. The film ends by explaining what the truth really is, which echoes the central theme of the film. It is a thoughtfully constructed story, well told and built. I enjoyed it a lot.

The plot is highly implausible. The lead characters in the movie are lawyers or aspiring to be a lawyer. There is clearly a legal way out of the predicament that the unhappy and abused wife finds herself in and therefore there is no need for a murder to take place. The mystery and its denouement are highly artificial and therefore disappointing.