The Keanu Reeves Project: The Whole Truth

THE WHOLE TRUTH (2016) - Ramsey

Maybe it's because I've forced myself to sit through about fifty movies so far, many of them being truly terrible, that it's starting to affect my overall taste in movies and how I'm rating them.  After all, with very few exceptions, since starting this project in April I've barely watched any new to me non-Keanu movies.

I love movies and while I've watched fewer and fewer "new" (new being defined as anything I haven't seen regardless of release date) movies the older I get, I still try to consume at least a few new movies every month but I've done nothing but watch Keanu movies for five months straight and for nearly all the ones I've never seen, there's no other reason I'd ever watch them if not for this project.  

I've all but abandoned my seemingly endless list of movies to watch so I can strictly focus on this project.  And because my list is almost exclusively movies recommended to me by people whose taste I overlap with, I've definitely "wasted" a lot of time watching crappy movies with Keanu Reeves in them rather than other movies that I'm sure I'd enjoy a lot more.  

So now I'm worried my baseline for what I'd consider "good" or at least better than average has fallen off a cliff since I've had to endure some really painful shit over the past several months.  I mean, I think "Generation Um..." and a re-watch of "Knock Knock" has made me long for anything that even borders on comprehension.  So I come to you today a bit concerned that I kind of liked a movie that was universally panned by critics and audiences alike.  

Let me just get this out of the way off the top (I feel like I tend to say this frequently) - "The Whole Truth" isn't a particularly good movie, but when compared to things like "The Watcher" or "Sweet November" it's a goddamn revelation of American cinema and I'd rather have to sit down and watch this again then ever spend another second watching "Feeling Minnesota" or "The Matrix Revolutions."

You know the drill, full spoilers ahead for a movie you'll never, ever watch.

So "The Whole Truth" is basically a courtroom procedural with Keanu, once again, playing a southern lawyer a la "The Devil's Advocate."  Once again, there's no reason for this movie to take place in the south, specifically New Orleans, other than to force Keanu into yet another awkward accent that tends to come and go throughout the movie.  In fact, one of my first notes was "Louisana Keanu - no accent?" only to follow that minutes later with "Wait, IS he doing an accent?"  I watched 90 minutes of this and still don't know if he was doing an accent or not.

But no matter.  The majority of the movie takes place inside a courtroom and I'd be willing to guess that about 75% of the movie takes place there, with the only parts not courtroom related being flashbacks (a lot of flashbacks) and a handful of scenes of Keanu in his hotel room after the day ended.  The movie even opens with the start of the trial next to some voiceover from Keanu telling us exactly what's going on, thanks for the exposition!

So here's where we start: Keanu is the defense attorney for a 17 year old named Mike, on trial for the first degree murder of his own father, but the first problem is that Mike hasn't said a goddamn word since his arrest, even to his own lawyer, Keanu.  This does not seem like a great way to defend yourself, but we learn that Mike is supposed to be some sort of burgeoning legal genius, following in the footsteps of his now dead father, so he apparently knows what he's doing by not speaking.

On the first day of the trial we get a little insight as to what happened both through opening testimony as well as some flashbacks to the day of the murder and meet basically everyone of importance in the movie:

We've got Keanu once again playing a defense attorney, this time representing 17 year old Mike, presumable father killer.  As far as we know, Keanu's boss is NOT the literal devil.

We also meet Mike's mother, Loretta, played here by a SERIOUSLY UNRECOGNIZABLE Renee Zellweger.  Seriously, I saw her name in the opening credits and when she first appeared on screen I literally asked to myself out loud, "wait, is that Renee Zellweger?"  This was apparently her first on-screen role in over six years and during that time it appears she must have committed some sort of international art heist leading to extensive plastic surgery so nobody could track her down..  You'd think she would have changed her name as well.  If I cared enough I'd go Google this but instead I'll just add a few images:

So you're telling me this is the same person....

AS THIS?

We also meet (in flashback) the dead father, Boone, played by Jim Belushi who I didn't even realize was still alive, let alone still appearing in movies in 2016.  Don't get me wrong, I've always been a HUGE fan of "According to Jim" so it's just great to see him still getting work on the big screen.

Best TV show of all time

Finally, we meet Keanu's co-council, Janelle who shows up to the trial late and it really doesn't matter because her entire use in the movie was almost entirely pointless.  Janelle is there in place of her father, a lawyer Keanu is friendly with and had actually tried to get to the trial only to be saddled with his potentially insane daughter, something mentioned in passing in what can only be described as an incredibly minor and irrelevant subplot.  

Hi, I'm crazy!  Don't worry, it really doesn't matter.

The entirety of the movie is then essentially the whole trial.  Now I'm not a lawyer by profession and I've only received my JD from the "My Cousin Vinny" school of law, but this movie may or may not disregard many of the things I know about jury trials.  But forget all that because that also doesn't matter either.  

The prosecution opens by saying that we're going to hear a lot about how shitty Jim Belushi was as a father and a human being, but that doesn't matter because he was murdered in cold blood.  The defense on the other hand, has no opening because Mike won't talk to Keanu.  I didn't even know you could wave a white flag like that at the onset of a trial, but there you go.  

The backstory is slowly unraveled with testimony from a handful of people, including the first officer on the scene, the first detective on the scene, the flight attendant on the private plane that Boone and Mike had recently flown on to visit colleges on the west coast, and two of Mike's neighbors.

Through flashbacks we gather a few things, all of which are critical to the rest of the courtroom drama and it would be impossible for me to describe this movie linearly so I'll just put this all out there in the event you give a shit:

Boone is a bit of a piece of shit.  He is filthy rich, working as a prominent personal injury lawyer, and is basically the movie version of the St. Louis couple who drew their guns on protestors walking past their house.  You know, these dipshits:

Boone's friends and family

In addition to being a general asshole, Boone verbally abuses his wife Loretta in public and is even spotted by the neighbor's son raping her from time to time.  This is just fucking great because after the last movie I totally needed just a little more raping in the Keanu Reeves Project.  Boone also cheats on her (because of course he does) which we see in flashbacks as he seems to fly private regularly with women who aren't his wife.  We never actually see him engaging in sexual acts with other women but it is not very subtly implied through a handful of flashback sequences.   

The flashbacks to the actual day of the murder are what are pretty critical to the movie, as you might expect.  Until halfway through the movie when Mike actually speaks for the first time, what we gather is basically the following:

Boone was returning from a business trip and Mike was at soccer practice, Loretta is in the shower and when she gets out, Boone has returned home from the trip and now lies dead on the bedroom floor, a knife in his chest and his son sitting over him.  Mike says either "I should have done this sooner" or just "Shoulda done this sooner," his phrasing in dispute in court.  Loretta calls the cops and one officer is the first person on the scene but interestingly, Keanu, who is a friend of the family is the second person to show up, presumably in a lawyerly capacity.  

Have no fear, Keanu is here!

Mike is arrested as he's literally the only suspect and sort of confessed to the crime at the scene although anyone watching this movie with half a brain (hey, that's me!) would already assume he's not the killer because that wouldn't really be a movie.  He then exercises his right to remain silent, including to his own attorney Keanu, for reasons that really don't make a lot of sense, even when we find out what actually happened at the very end of the movie.

As the movie continues, an astute watcher including myself, starts to notice some things seem a bit off and that Loretta was probably the actual killer.  But we also get a glimpse or two that something may or may not also be going on with her and Keanu.  During one flashback, the family has a barbecue in which Boone berates his wife in front of guests (because he's a really swell guy) and she confides in Keanu that she wants to divorce him but he'd kill her before that happens.  

Loretta is called to the stand at one point and refuses to answer specific questions as to what was said between her and Boone on the day of his murder but does mention that Boone had regularly abused her physically and emotionally, including on the day of the murder, although we never actually see Boone hit her in any of the flashbacks.  This is called into question when Keanu then provides evidence to the court of photos of Loretta's injured body on the day of the murder.  I didn't think you were allowed to submit surprise evidence in a trial (thanks "My Cousin Vinny"), but whatever.  

Eventually the prosecution rests with Mike still not having said a goddamn word.  They've basically proven their case - they have both Mike's on-scene confession and his bloody handprint on the murder weapon.  Keanu is trying to put on the best defense he can, but it ain't easy when your client literally won't talk to you.  Keanu goes to visit Mike in his holding cell and pleads with him to say something but all Mike does is write a note saying he wants to be called to the stand.  Keanu clearly doesn't want to do this because he has no idea what Mike will actually say on the stand but is left with no choice when Mike threatens to fire him if he doesn't call him as a witness.

Dammit Mike, nobody ever won an Oscar for NEVER SPEAKING!

The next day, Keanu calls Mike to the stand who describes years of abuse at the hands of his father, including being raped by him since he was 12 years old.  He says these rapes happened frequently including on the private jet they took together to visit colleges.  And while that seemed pretty preposterous to me given the jet they took together wasn't exactly a huge place where this could happen, the movie does a half-decent job at describing how this could have been theoretically possible but I'm not going to bother getting into describing how a theoretical rape could or could not have happened on the plane.  

So while the going theory had been that Mike murdered his father to protect his mother from him, Mike's own testimony shows that to not be true as he was actually protecting himself from all of the abuse he suffered.  At some point we get a flashback of Mike finding his father dead on the floor, putting his hand on his chest and then on the knife, ostensibly to protect his mother from facing charges.  

The trial ends and Mike is found not guilty despite the fact that the entire courtroom, including Keanu, concludes that Mike was in fact the killer.  

This is my surprised face!

After the trial ends, Mike requests to speak with Keanu privately, so they meet up in a private room in the courthouse and Mike presents Keanu with a drawing he'd been working on during the jury deliberations.  Keanu asks him what it is and Mike says, "It's your watch.  I saw it under the bed the day my dad was killed."

Then we cut to another flashback to the day of the murder - Mike is kneeling over his father after planting his own handprint on the murder weapon and then spots a watch sitting at the edge of the bed.  His mother comes over to talk to him, kneeling down in front of the watch and surreptitiously removing it from the scene.  How he later realized it was actually Keanu's watch is still a bit of a mystery, so let's just assume that Mike has an amazing memory.

See, it turns out that Loretta had been banging Keanu on the side this whole time.  This "twist" was relatively noticeable from the few scenes we got of them together and unlike some reviews I've read or heard about this movie, was not completely out of left field. 

The movie ends with not one but TWO MORE flashbacks!

The first is Keanu talking to Boone outside a courtroom where Boone confesses that he knows his wife is having an affair.  Boone gives Keanu a wink and it's sort of implied that Boone knows it's Keanu who is banging his wife.  

You fuck my wife?

The second flashback is back to the day of the murder.  Loretta is in the bathroom, hitting herself with an object Marky Mark "Fear" style.  She leaves the bathroom and waits for Boone to come home, looking out the window, eventually telling someone off-screen "he's coming." she leaves the bathroom and waits for Boone to come home, looking out the window, eventually telling someone off-screen "he's coming."   

Boone enters the bedroom and starts to unpack when he's attacked....by KEANU (I mean at this point you had to see that coming after his conversation with Mike after the trial).  Keanu shoves a knife into Boone (with a gloved hand) and then tells Loretta she has to put her hand on the knife, but that's when they hear Mike who is home early from practice.  Keanu has fled or hid at this point and Mike witnesses his dead father and decides to take the blame in order to save his mother from prosecution, subsequently destroying the original plan to claim Loretta's own self-defense.  That's when Mike realizes there was someone else in the room (from the watch) and that his mother wasn't the actual killer.

So the whole movie was basically Keanu and Loretta improvising plan B to get away with murder after Mike took the blame for a crime he didn't commit and that's the end.

Okay, so some stray observations:

*There's a very, very minor subplot with Keanu's co-council Janelle that is completely meaningless and wholly unnecessary to the movie: she was only hired by Keanu because her father, the guy he really wanted (we don't know why) was busy on another case so he sent her instead.  She was apparently fired from her previous firm for stalking a partner there that she was having an affair with and eventually committed to a mental facility for a period of time.  That's it, that's the subplot, brought up for literally no reason and never mentioned again after the one and a half scenes it's talked about.  I guess this is supposed to explain what she's doing there in the first place, as she eventually learns on her own that Mike wasn't the killer but also suspects Loretta, just like anyone else watching the movie.

Oh hi Janelle, remind me what you're doing here?

*While I assumed early on that Keanu was more involved in this than the movie let on, I didn't really expect him to be the killer until the last flashback to the day of the murder when I assumed we'd see him kill Boone.  The fact that he was the second person at the scene of the crime was always completely suspicious so the big "reveal" at the end was actually kind of satisfying.  Based on critical reviews of the movie, I have a feeling that my opinion there is just a tad bit controversial.

*Jim Belushi plays an asshole really well.  Welcome back from the dead, Jim!

*Does Keanu ride a motorcycle in this movie for no reason?  You bet your ass he does!

Dork

*When we reach the end of the movie, I'm still a little perplexed why Mike refused to talk to anyone, including his own lawyer.  Sure, Mike is the ONLY person who knows (or at least has an idea) of what actually happened, he still hated his father even to go so far as to think on his feet to take the blame for the murder before he notices the watch on the ground.  Maybe best to not think too hard about this.

Box Office Information: N/A Domestic (very limited release?)/$1.7 Million International for $1.7 Million worldwide.   Yet another Keanu movie that was seen by essentially nobody but a handful of critics.  And me.

Rotten Tomatoes: 30% Critic/33% audience.  Okay, I can understand why nobody liked this movie.  It's just not that good.  

IMDB: 6.2

My Movie Rating: Okay, as stated at the top, I think my opinion is probably biased due to all the absolute shit I've sat through for this project and this movie is certainly a lot better than a good chunk of that.  Is that a good enough reason to give this movie a better than average rating?  Yes, yes it is.  5.5.  Sure I've already ruined it for you but for someone that hasn't read this recap, I would give it a very soft recommend.  Very soft.  Like if you literally had nothing to do, go ahead and watch "The Whole Truth."

Keanu Rating: Yeah, his accent goes in and out through the course of the movie (what else is new) but he's  good enough in this that I'm not mad at him.  6/10.

Up Next: It's a movie called "The Neon Demon."  I feel like I might have seen a trailer for this at some point but I have absolutely no clue what it is.