Could have been more.

Rating: 3/10 (13 January 2010)

Jim Carrey has made a career out of rubber faced antics and slapstick gymnastics since becoming a star with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. The Cable Guy was an admirable attempt on Carrey's part to try something different that didn't quite come off because it was just the same old shtick in a whole new movie. The Truman Show was a more successful attempt to flex Carrey's wings as an actor.
After a frosty reception greeted The Cable Guy, Jim Carrey returned to what he knew best in Liar Liar, a film with an interesting premise - a man who lies for a living can only tell the truth. Played with a wider scope of imagination, Liar Liar could have been something akin to Groundhog Day - a single premise put through a rigorous, intensive experiment that scaled greater and greater heights. Or a cruelly hysterical black comedy if made by the Coen Brothers. But in Tom Shadyac's hands, instead it just becomes a one-gag vehicle for Jim Carrey's manic mugging.
I've never been a fan of Tom Shadyac. His films either collapse into silliness like Ace Ventura, or sink into soft-headed sludge like Patch Adams and Bruce Almighty. The one exception on his resume is the delightful remake of The Nutty Professor. The one film he's ever made where he pulled everything together into a successful package. A film as funny as it is sweet.
But Liar Liar sees Shadyac return to his usual weaknesses. The problem I have with the film is it never really knows what to do with its idea. Even at a slim 85 minutes, Liar Liar's one and only joke is stretched. And that's to see Jim Carrey acting like a one-man loony bin. Not for the first (or last) time.
Jim Carrey's given some pretty whacked out performances in his day. But the one he gives in Liar Liar almost makes them seem minimalist. After his son makes a birthday wish that his father can only be truthful for a whole day, it springboards Carrey sky high. There are some who no doubt derive amusement from watching him go completely off his head. But I just found all of the shouting and the yelling and the wailing so wearying.
Carrey throws himself into the role with total reckless abandon. In fact, that's what he does a lot of the time - throwing himself around. Some scenes in the film are just awful and they go on at embarrassing length. Like when he's holding a blue Biro, tries to say its red and he can't no matter how much he wants to. But even worse then that is the scene in a men's room when he trashes the place to get out of the courtroom. It all makes you wonder what lunatic asylum Jim Carrey escaped from.
The main problem with Liar Liar is that Jim Carrey isn't the right actor for the role. Since the theme of the film is a dishonest, inattentive father seeing the error of his ways, then what it needed was someone who can play greedy and sarcastic, and then equally downplay it to meet his redemption. Someone like Bill Murray.
But because this is Jim Carrey, all we get instead is him yelling the house down from start to finish. That's all he ever seems to do. Whether it be the slick lawyer lying through his teeth, the attorney forced to tell the truth, or the changed husband and father who wants to fix things with his son. There's no sense of a man changing into a better one. Just an obnoxious man that knows no limits how far over the top he can go. Its an annoying, one-note performance.
Because Tom Shadyac refuses to rein in Carrey's excesses, Liar Liar just gets more tedious as it goes on. Even before we're halfway through, the film has become like gristle between your teeth that you can't dislodge no matter what. And the film arrives at a ridiculous ending. Something that involves Carrey using a stair escalator at an airport to stop his ex-wife and son leaving on a plane. The fact that they get back together is stupidly contrived. And it seemingly casts aside her relationship with a good man in an irritably cavalier manner.
Liar Liar may have been a sizable box-office success, but I just found it irritating to the max in every way. The comedy. The way Tom Shadyac tries to tack on a false moral at the end. But even worse is watching a potentially good idea wasted on such a lame vehicle. A missed opportunity that really could have been so much more.