The Good Liar

Consummate con man Roy Courtnay has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish, worth millions. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes.

Cast

Helen Mirren – Betty

Ian McKellen – Roy

Ready for my (almost) shortest review ever?

The Good Liar isn’t a bad little film. Bit dull though. Mirren and McKellen play two recently acquainted older people who both have deep history and something going on in the background. But I won’t lie, there is nothing at all here that couldn’t have been screened as a BBC prime time drama. As I sat watching Mirren strolling through a quaint British village or McKellen going about his dodgy dealings with dangerous people, I genuinely wondered why and how this story had been made into a cinematic feature. The cozy one-bed bungalow with its pastel colour interior, small kitchen and flowery front garden. Steven (Tovey) sat chatting with his grandmother at a candle-clad dinner table as wine is being poured. This seriously wasn’t the most vibrant of sets or thrilling of screenplays for a big-screen ‘movie’. Yes, the actors all gave convincing performances but there was just no substance to make this worthy of being shown in cinemas. Everything you see here is similar to something you’d see on TV on a Sunday evening.

I’d probably be ironing on a Sunday afternoon when this appears on the TV. And I would probably change channels too.