La verdad sobre Charlie

"Charade" is a film who's great appeal rests in two things. Extremely charismatic leads, and a light, effervescent early 60's atmosphere. It's Hitchcock (very very) light with a plot that largely serves to get the leads interacting.

I don't think it's impossible to remake. The plot is light enough to be used in different contexts. But you need two leads with powerful charisma and ... I would suggest ... you need to completely break the association with the early 60's and create an entirely new setting for this story.

Jonathan Demme's remake fails on both points. Thandie Newton does have a lot of charisma. She didn't have the really radiant star power that Audrey Hepburn had in 1963, but she is more than up to the task. She's really the only thing about this film that works.

Not so with Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg can be great ("Boogie Nights", "I Heart Huckabees"), but he's a limited actor who needs to be used well. He's not a fount of charisma. Given his clearly suspicious behavior in this film, you can never accept that Newton just follows him unquestioningly.

Demme makes the really strange decision to repeatedly reference the French New Wave in this film. There are clips from "Shoot the Piano Player" and Charles Aznavour, Anna Karina and Agnes Varda all have cameos. This is weird not only because "Charade" is clearly a very different beast from the French New Wave, but also it awkwardly ties this film back to the first film's era without invoking anything that's appealing about that film.

This film just doesn't work. I think the first act is passable, but the film falls completely apart. Continuing the New Wave references, Demme shoots this in a very loose, hand-held style that really just serves to render any attempts at suspense completely ineffective.

I don't know what Tim Robbins thinks he's doing in this film, but he's truly awful.

This was strange. I had no idea what this film was about as it was a free loan and I just put in the machine, not even reading the back of the box. Well, obviously it didn't take long to figure out this was a re-make of the famous 1963 film "Charade."

It's not really bad on it's own but if you've watched and admired Charade a half dozen times as I have, this film isn't even close measuring up. Mark Wahlberg is no Cary Grant; Thandie Newton is no Audry Hepburn and Tim Robbins in no Walter Matthau.

Why settle for second-rate after having first-rate? I mean, why even bother? It's not like you are updating some old black-and-white movie to accommodate today's crowd which won't look at B&W. The original still looks good (on the Criterion DVD).

So Cary grant and Audrey Hepburn are unfortunately dead. That means director Jonathan Demme (`Silence of the Lambs') must find suitable replacements for his remake of `Charade' called `The Truth about Charlie.' Will Smith was his first choice-Mark Wahlberg (`Planet of the Apes') took the Grant role. Thandi Newton (`Mission Impossible 2') plays Hepburn's role. Neither carries the film, which requires a certain amount of international sophistication and charm.

Set in Paris, `The Truth about Charlie' starts with a murder and the victim's money, which everyone seems to want. It has touches of the old American love of Paris, e.g., the tower appears regularly. But it is a more modern Paris than the original film's: Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (`Signs' `The Silence of the Lambs') said, `We wanted to make the city feel mysterious and scary. We wanted it overcast and gray-different from the traditional view of Paris, more realistic, more paranoid.'

A Ferris-wheel scene with Wahlberg and Tim Robbins, who reprises the Walter Matthau role, evokes the mystery and danger of Sir Carol Reed's `Third Man.' That most American of images, the incarcerated Hannibal Lecter, ends the film with a fitting tribute to his invulnerability.

Back to Wahlberg and Newton. The success of the film, then and now, rests with the leads, and they failed. Wahlberg is flat, expressionless, 2 dimensional. Newton lacks the acting chops to navigate the aftershocks of a husband's murder and the barrage of interest in his money, hidden somewhere in plain sight. Robbins comes closest to a screen presence, part mountebank, part protector, and part enigma.

The original title `Charade' better expresses the delicious ambiguity of European intrigue where nothing is as it seems, and people are not what they appear. In this regard, `Charlie' fulfills the promise. For a modern look, it also succeeds.

But in an overall comparison between the 2 films, `Charlie' is the imposter-no ambiguity intended.

OK, so I didn't waste eight bucks at the box office, nor did I spend four bucks at Blockbuster; luckily, I had credit at Netflix.com so I didn't spend a dime to see this latest of Hollywood remakes. Apparently very few screenwriters can come up with original ideas, so we wind up with a new version of an old favorite month after month. I hope that Mr. Demme is out of rehab by now, because he must've been on some kind of delusional trip when he got the idea to remake a classic. I've read all the reviews posted here at IMDB, and for the life of me I cannot see the rants and raves for Thandie Newton. Poor child, why didn't her mother tell her NOT to attempt to recreate an Audrey Hepburn role? She has about as much cinematic charisma as a pile of sawdust. Early in the movie when she's standing between the French Commandant and the Lieutenant, Ms. Newton completely disappears. I was watching the Lt. more than the star of the picture. Seeing the extras on the DVD, Mr. Demme proclaimed he was looking for the right vehicle for Ms. Newton's talent (or did he have more prurient interests in her off camera?). The worst scene was the gunpoint standoff which I found myself looking at my watch, wondering how long could this go on? I've always been a huge fan of Tim Robbins, but what in heaven's name, was the accent he was trying to use? I can't blame Mark Wahlberg, he chomped at the bit to play a romantic lead. Damn! Had he never seen the original film and realized whom he would be compared to? This was truly sad. There's no reason to continue tearing this piece of schlock frame by frame, but the closing credits??? Mr. Demme chose to dedicate this to his late brother...who's surely rolling over in his grave from this. Ms. Portman's music even had to use the Mancini theme to compensate for her lack of originality. Then, I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it...someone at Universal Pictures had the gall to put the original "Charade" on the flip side of the "Charlie" DVD. Stupidity? Insanity? Audacity? There is NO word for it! God! What a mess!!!

I really wanted to like this movie. Jonathan Demme is one of my favorite film makers and I thought if anyone could remake one of my favorite movies of all time, Demme could. Demme couldn't.

Newton and Robbins are ok, Wahlberg doesn't work at all, and the other "evil" characters who were so memorable in Charade come across as interchangeable cyphers.

I usually like Demme's music selection, but here there didn't seem to be any sort of unifying theme behind his music. And, it certainly wasn't Mancini's wonderful score.

But the biggest Truth about Charlie is that Demme's rewrite is simply awful.

In the original, Charlie is a nobody and so he doesn't get in the way of all the other characters. Here he has a face and is, apparently, the big villain, so we have to be treated to a slew of foggy flashbacks that halt the flow of the story.

Newton and Wahlberg lip-lock so early, there's absolutely none of the playful sexual tension of the original. And, instead of Grant's cocky, end-of-the-film surprise, we get a bathetic Wahlberg begging Newton to forgive him. Bleacch.

The reworking of the story that sets everything in motion is so muddled I'm still not sure just exactly what was happening and why.

And the final big thing missing is the element of wonderful surprise Donen crafted so well. In the original Grant's multiple characters are peeled back with delicious surprise at each new revelation ending with the final, perfect surprise at the end of the film. And the moment when the original film reveals the big secret is still thrilling, even after watching it a dozen times. In Charlie, the big secret becomes a tiny flicker of something in Newton's eyes and when it is finally revealed, it's a moment that the word "anticlimax" was designed for.

It's such a shame that Demme made such a muddle of something that originally was so clean and clearly presented. As so many others have done, I strongly recommend you skip this one and just go back to the original.