Review: The Whole Truth

It's always a mystery as to how a film made by talented people in front of and behind the camera can be so terrible. Take The Whole Truth, a courtroom drama written by Nicholas Kazan, who scripted Patty Hearst, At Close Range and the Oscar-nominated Reversal of Fortune; directed by Courtney Hunt, who made a strong impression with her Oscar-nominated debut Frozen River; and starring the likes of Keanu Reeves, Renée Zellweger, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. One would expect something far more interesting than the deathly dull end result.

The film centers around a seemingly open-and-shut case. Seventeen-year-old Mike Lassiter (Gabriel Basso) is on trial for killing his father Boone (Jim Belushi). Not only were his fingerprints found on the murder weapon, but Mike confessed to the crime and hasn't uttered a word since. Defense attorney and family friend Richard Ramsay (Reeves) believes there's something that Mike is hiding and he's determined to make the boy talk in order to have any sort of chance of winning their case. In the meantime, Richard is putting on a rope-a-dope defense, pretending to lose so that he can bide some time before hopefully being able to throw the winning punch.

Throughout the trial, we learn what an unbelievably atrocious and boorish human being Boone was, so much so that it's a small wonder no one thought of doing away with him earlier or of casting suspicion upon his wife Loretta who was, by all accounts, both verbally and sexually abused by Boone. Loretta is portrayed by Zellweger, who appears shocked that she accepted a role that is far beneath her talents. There was a moment when it seemed the baby doll tremulousness might hide a duplicitous interior, but it came and went so fast that it might have been wishful thinking.

In fact, for all its turns into the lurid, The Whole Truth remains willfully devoid of any intrigue. Even its final twist is ho-hum and fairly predictable. There's more energy and momentum in a routine episode of Law and Order than in this entire film, and one isn't entirely sure who is responsible for where this all went wrong.

The Whole Truth

Directed by: Courtney Hunt

Written by: Nicholas Kazan

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Renée Zellweger, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jim Belushi, Gabriel Basso