The Pleasures of 'True Lies'

"When he said I do, he never said what he did."

I was pleasantly surprised to find True Lies on Hulu the other day. Despite the movie grossing over $378MM worldwide when it was released in 1994, no Blu-ray of the film exists in the US and its availability on VOD is spotty. That means that watching it on Hulu is the only way to easily stream an HD version of it. After having seen it, I can confirm that the transfer is actually good(!). If you haven’t seen the film, or are looking to do a rewatch, this is a worthy way to engage with it.

Rewatching True Lies on Hulu filled me with nostalgia. I remember when my cousin first took me to see this film in theaters. I was a teenager and had no conception of who James Cameron was, but my cousin couldn’t have been more excited and I quickly saw why: the movie remains to this day one of the greatest pieces of action entertainment ever made. It was rare for me to watch a movie that was 2 hours and 24 minutes and still feel like they could just play the movie again.

So much of this movie still rocks. Arnold Schwarzenegger is at the peak of his powers, bringing swagger, charisma, and a mischievousness to the character of Harry Tasker (“You’re fired” = still one of my favorite one-liners of all time). Tom Arnold is frickin hilarious and fearless in trying to get laughs. Jamie Lee-Curtis is heartfelt and brings a tragic depth to the character of Tasker’s long-suffering wife.

But it’s the action that’s really the star here. Every action scene is a banger. The opening snow sequence in Switzerland. The extended chase through the streets leading into the Marriott hotel. Everything involving the Florida Keys. The final sequence in which Arnold Schwarzenegger flies a Harrier jet through downtown.

So much of this film would’ve been shot on green screen or soundstages today instead of on location and practically. Instead, Cameron not only takes great pains to shows us that someone is doing this for real (even if it’s obviously Arnold’s stunt double), but he often employs the use of slow motion so that we can revel in the beauty of the death and destruction his characters wreak.

There’s a moment towards the end of the film that I still find visually spectacular. Tasker and his men are trying to stop a nuclear weapon from reaching the mainland of the United States. Two Harrier jets fire missiles at the Middle Keys bridge, creating a wave of explosions. The way Cameron shoots/edits this scene is so…disciplined. The way the camera is stationary for the moment of impact (and the way it barely moves throughout for the rest of the sequence — just some slight pans to keep up with what’s happening, no shaky cam here, sir). The missiles exploding into the bridge — both awe-inspiring and beautiful. It’s easy to forget you are watching people (albeit terrorists) getting totally annihilated.

Despite my enjoyment of the film, many elements have aged poorly. The movie’s depiction of a fictional, cartoonishly evil terrorist cell, Crimson Jihad, is cringe-inducing in light of America’s horrifying misadventures in the Middle East since this movie’s release. And the fact that Harry Tasker reappropriates government resources to spy on his wife and manipulate her into falling in love with him again now reads more as gross, irresponsible gaslighting vs. over-the-top male fantasy. Coupled with Eliza Dushku’s stories of how she was sexually assaulted on set, the movie’s gender politics feel like a relic of a different era.

Whatever the film’s problems, it remains a tremendous piece of entertainment and an incisive snapshot of a specific moment in time in the 90’s. An extension of the 007 fantasy that being a spy could be glamorous and exciting — good for your country and good for your marriage/sex life. A reaffirmation of the idea that hey, it’s fine to bend a few rules and misallocate a few million dollars worth of government resources. As long as you get the bad guy in the end, right?