My Review of "Liar Liar"

Liar Liar is a comedy that came out in 1997. It's a movie that is geared toward a wide audience but in a way it isn't. There's definitely a family film aspect to this movie but there are a few adult references sprinkled throughout the movie. That's why I'm not totally sure if there's a group that this movie is really geared towards.

The movie starts out with Max. He's a 5 year old kid in school and at school they're talking about careers. Everyone is asked what their parents do. Max tells his teacher that his mother is a teacher and his father is a liar. He doesn't know how to differentiate a liar and a lawyer. I guess that's the joke. It's an ongoing joke as we see the vile creatures that come out of Max's dad, Fletcher's legal firm.

We then discover Fletcher and his ambitions to become a partner in the legal firm he works for. He's a sociopath and doesn't realize it. The problem is the destruction that he's caused as a result of his narcissistic passion to become a partner at his firm.

Throughout the first part of the movie we discover that he's ignored his relatives and divorced his wife because of his selfishness. Even worse is that he's now constantly disappointing his son. Now Max is at an age where he's recognizing how terrible his father. He's starting to understand that his father isn't as great of a guy as he thought he was.

The last strike was thrown when Fletcher decides to sleep with his boss instead of going to Max's 5th birthday party. Distraught about the situation Max makes a heartfelt birthday wish. He wished that his father could no longer tell lies for the next 24 hours. Miraculously, the wish comes to fruition at the most inopportune time of Fletcher's career.

Technically lying isn't Fletcher's biggest vice. He simply uses lying as a tool to advance his bigger problem, putting his priorities in the wrong places. All of Fletcher's lies stem from advancing his career. It doesn't seem that he actually wants to lie to his family. Through a series of unfortunate instances he starts to discover this and tries to turn over a new leaf by the end.

This movie is really weird because there is all sorts of wacky comedy involved. A lot of it stems from Fletcher's wild physical overreactions. I think a lot of people will still be able to appreciate this type of humor but it is admittedly an acquired taste. After a while I started to get into it and there was a sense of endearment that came from Fletcher. I don't know what it was but he drew me in after a while. This was a bit of a surprise because I thought this was terrible at first because Fletcher is such a terrible person.

Those of today's sensibilities will be easily offended by this movie. There are jokes at the expenses of a lot of groups of people that are protected from bullying today. My eyes opened up wide when I saw some of these extremely politically incorrect jokes. This was definitely a product of its time and we have advanced in our awareness of people.

At its core this is a family film. There are some very adult scenarios that make make kind of confused as to the direction of the movie. I'm really surprised that some of these scenes went through for such a family film. So the tone of this movie is kind of all over the place but at the same time kind of meant for everyone. I don't know what they were thinking.

Overall, I thought it was an okay movie. There was enough in this movie to keep me entertained but not enough to say that it was a good movie. I have to give this movie a 5.5 out of 10. I was charmed by the cast and really that's what lifts this movie and brings it into the entertaining territory.