Comedies are a dime a dozen nowadays so they are becoming harder and harder to top. There are times when a filmmaker attempts to try to take on a subject with comedy to make a statement about which is a tricky thing to make work. The latest film The Whole Truth seems to be doing this with the legal system sporting a decent cast including Elisabeth Rohm, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Eric Roberts, but does it accomplish in delivering its message and the comedy?
The Whole Truth follows an acting coach whose client list are accused criminals in the attempt to make them presentable for court. When she over hears one of her clients she helped free is planning a crime and has targeted her for murder, she is forced to use her own teachings to change herself and in doing so finds out who she really is. There are some pretty funny moments in this film, mostly thanks to Eric Roberts, but sadly it mostly gets lost in itself. Without the explanation of where the filmmaker is trying to go and tell the audience this film is really all over the place and convoluted. Once you understand the message the movie makes a bit more sense, but still has some issues flowing smoothly. At first it makes complete sense and then it starts to jump around a bit and loses you. The performances are all decent, with Roberts being the most stand out of the bunch. His over the top performance is so ridiculous that it is way more entertaining than it deserves to be. The rest of the cast deliver what they can, but it's hard to tell if they want it to be an over the top comedy or it just happens to play out that way.
This isn't a horrible movie, but at the same time it struggles trying to come together. As mentioned the message is key to understand what they are trying to tell the audience which is a social commentary on the legal system to really appreciate any aspect of this film.
