THE WHOLE TRUTH (2016)

Genre: Drama
Director: Courtney Hunt
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Renée Zellweger, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jim Belushi, Gabriel Basso
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: NC16 (Sexual Violence)
Released By: Shaw  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 24 November 2016

Synopsis: Defending a client in a murder trial is already intense; but for lawyer Richard Ramsay (KEANU REEVES), the stakes are even higher. His client is young Mike Lassiter (GABRIEL BASSO), a 17-year old accused of murdering his father, Boone (JIM BELUSHI). Ramsay has been friendly with the Lassiter family for years, and has sworn to widow Loretta (RENÉE ZELLWEGER) that he will keep Mike out of prison. The problem is that Mike hasn’t said a word since the murder, except to initially confess that he was the one who stabbed his father. Ramsay is a shrewd lawyer, but knows that until his client chooses to speak – even if just to Ramsay himself – he doesn’t have much of a chance. At Ramsey’s side is a new colleague, Janelle (GUGU MBATHA-RAW), who seems to have an unerring knack for seeing through a witness’ lies. As the lawyers play a delicate chess game and manage to get new revelations to come to light – including evidence about just the kind of man that Boone Lassiter was – Ramsay utilizes every scheme in the book to get his client acquitted, while Janelle begins to realize that the whole truth is something that perhaps no one but she will ever recognize.

Movie Review:

There was a time back in the 1990s when courtroom dramas were the rage, so much so that studios were falling over each other trying to acquire the film rights to each and every John Grisham novel they could get their hands on. But ever since dramas like ‘Law and Order’, ‘Boston Legal’ and ‘The Practice’ introduced us to lawyers and paralegals we ended up falling in love with, that genre has all but disappeared from the big screen, which therefore makes us a release like ‘The Whole Truth’ even more curious. And at least for a good hour, it does seem that director Courtney Hunt’s first film since her 2008 Oscar-nominated ‘Frozen River’ packs a compelling mystery behind the murder of the piggish high-powered lawyer Boone Lassiter (James Belushi), whose son Mike (Gabriel Basso) is on trial for after having his prints found on the knife of the stabbed body.

What was supposed to be an open-and-shut case of patricide – as Mike’s defense attorney Richard Ramsay (Keanu Reeves) tells us in a pseudo-hardboiled voiceover at the beginning – has turned out anything but, as various witnesses on the stand paint not only a more textured picture of Boone and his relationships with his wife Loretta (Renee Zellweger) and only son but also a less than complete account of the truth that they have sworn to tell. The latter is revealed niftily enough, as each witness’ testimony comes accompanied with a flashback suggesting that what he or she is saying on the stand may not reveal everything or may even be a blatant lie. Detecting that is also the task of Ramsay’s fresh colleague Janelle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), whom Ramsay recruits to join him on the case on account of her sterling ‘bullshit detector’ skills as well as to provide ‘mixed-race window dressing’.

There is the air stewardess (Nicole Barre) who served regularly on Boone’s private chartered flights, including the very last one Boone and Mike were on just before they got home where the latter had apparently then killed his father. There is the next-door neighbor (Jim Klock) who used to be close with the Lassiters until a house party some years back where he had reportedly stepped in to intervene when Boone openly humiliated his wife in plain sight of all the other guests. And last but not least there is the policewoman who first arrived at the scene of the crime after Loretta had dialed 911, who claims that Mike had said ‘I should have done this earlier’. Not entirely consistent as they may be, the combination of these testimonies collectively suggest Loretta as a victim of physical abuse and repeated infidelity, which pretty much suggests that she could very well be the killer instead of Mike and that the latter is standing for trial to protect her.

That suspicion which Rafael Jackson’s screenplay assiduously plants in the mind of the viewer is reinforced by Mike’s refusal to speak to anyone since being arrested – and that includes Richard, who in turn refuses to mount any robust cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses until Mike talks to him. Though not as clearly fleshed out as it should be, Mike really is a sharp legal mind in his own thanks to his father’s upbringing from young, which also means that his deliberate silence is less out of obstinacy than ingenuity. Not to worry though; there are no spoilers to be found here, but you get the idea that there is an intriguing whodunit built up from testimonies, flashbacks and backstories in the first hour – which only makes the ‘whole truth’ when it is finally revealed underwhelming and ultimately disappointing.

And for a movie that is pretty much built entirely on plot, the fact that its climax lands with a thud makes the whole experience feel wasted. That is Hunt’s fault too, given how her film makes no attempt to develop its characters beyond their relation to the trial. Despite the material though, the ensemble cast bring their A-game, whether Reeves as the seasoned yet cynical lawyer whose motives only become clearer at the end or Zellweger as the twitchy widow watching from the back in a state of confusion and anxiety or supporting players Mbatha-Raw and Belushi who each do their best with the thinly written roles that they have been given. Even Hunt, who was trained as a lawyer and has done episodes of ‘Law and Order: Special Victims Unit’, has done better in her directorial debut, not least in painting a vivid backdrop of the Louisiana community which the characters inhabit.

Given its flaws and its modest ambitions, it is a wonder why ‘The Whole Truth’ wasn’t simply made for the small screen, or for that matter, left its plot to an episode of the next TV legal drama. Notwithstanding that the two household-name leads are no longer the stars they were before, both Reeves and Zellweger deserve much better than this ho-hum courtroom drama. There are interesting details here about trial strategy (such as picking apart a police statement or selecting the right balance of jurors to play to their sympathies), but these merits are lost amidst a case that really is much, much weaker, than it presents itself to be. You’re better off watching a re-run of ‘A Time to Kill’ or ‘The Firm’ than this flimsy procedural that won’t stand up to any form of scrutiny. 

Movie Rating:

(Unless you're in dire need of a courtroom drama fix, this ho-hum procedural with an intriguing start but underwhelming finish ultimately makes too flimsy a case for your attention)

Review by Gabriel Chong