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Rating: The review of this film started automatically after watching that goofy gathering of over-sixties in the brilliant trashy movie "The Expendables 2". It was impossible to resist the temptation to go back and find some old titles of our muscle-bound, fist-throwing heroes. It must be specified right away that the worldwide success of "The Expendables" was due solely to the self-irony effect. If Stallone, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Norris, and company had taken themselves seriously, I think we would have been faced with one of the most embarrassing films of all time. The card of self-parody that aims for excessive action, playful yet spectacular and not purely nonsensical, was the real weapon of this gathering of spry old men for nostalgic fans. Yet Stallone (screenwriter of "The Expendables 2" and director of the first chapter) was certainly not the first to take this route. In recent years, many films have spectacularly parodied the American action style, harkening back to the mythical nonsense of the 80s/90s, such as movies featuring Jason Statham. However, if we go back in time, we find the usual avant-garde character who, along with John McTiernan (Last Action Hero), decided to play the card of high-testosterone self-irony. We're talking about that billionaire genius James Cameron, who, inspired by a French comedy ("La Totale" 1992), wrote and directed this "True Lies," which in 1994 brought the usual breath of novelty and cinematic avant-garde.
"True Lies" is a dynamite film!
Cameron in the director's chair, Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis on set, almost 50 stuntmen, avant-garde special effects (called "real effects", a technique that makes digital effects indistinguishable from the real background), and above all a solid screenplay! No small feat considering that usually this kind of film focuses entirely on action, completely ignoring the plot. Here, on the contrary, despite the improbable action, the story is the element where Cameron steps on the gas. A sort of genre parody but in an adrenaline-fueled way. A bored little wife looking for thrills doesn't know that her office-worker husband is actually the reincarnation of Rambo! A theme then picked up in the years to come in various films (using similar narrative styles but significantly inferior). It's impossible not to get caught up in the narrated tale, especially when our hero organizes a real special mission to find out if his wife is cheating on him. Brilliant, with a fast pace and never a dull moment, Cameron directs his actors at their best, who, thanks to playful acting, manage to perfectly balance the action scenes. Just think of the scene -now cinema history- in which Curtis improvises a striptease for her husband in the guise of a womanizer.
There are too many scenes to remember, everything is there! Horse chases inside a shopping mall, shootouts in public toilets, enemies hanging from Jet heads, and above all, an unforgettable Schwarzenegger taking off with the vertically taking Harriet Jet (for those who don't know: the scene was shot without a double, since Uncle Arnold held a pilot's license). Indescribable is the sensation of seeing the future governor of California suspended in mid-air with the Jet while smashing skyscrapers and positioning under a crane to catch his daughter who is falling (with special effects at the limit of reality). All of this in the distant 1994, long before these things were seen every day through CG special effects with their annoying playstation effect (Noteworthy, however, is the similar sequence with the Jet in "Die Hard 4", probably inspired by this film), and especially before this new wave of self-ironic American action films. Cameron always at the top.
Nothing short of epic.
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