True Lies (1994 film) = Finished

It is fascinating to see the culmination of a director's career before they make a major shift. True Lies combines the personal focus and suspense of Terminator, when James Cameron had Very Little Money, with the action excess of Terminator 2, when he had Too Much Money. Three years later, he would produce Titanic, and his movies would never quite be the same.

For this period of Cameron's career, True Lies is a fitting send-off.

Can I gush a bit?
I'm gonna gush now.

I
LOVE
THE STRUCTURE OF THE FIRST TWO ACTS 

The first act is pure espionage action. Arnold Schwarzenegger wears a tuxedo and dances with an attractive woman to avoid bad guys seeing him. He sets off an explosion at the first sign of danger. Lies to his wife and kids. It's great! Then we learn that, oh, the supposedly helpless wife figure actually does have agency, and might be having an affair. Schwarzenegger is a shattered man, we whiplash into a relationship-based thriller-comedy--a thromedy?--and it works. It shouldn't work, but it does. Stunningly so.

After this promising foundation, the movie segues into a cacophony of explosions for its third act. It's not bad. However, I do find it interesting how the impact of these Extremely Expensive sequences pales in comparison to the mundane sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger staring down his fictional wife as she lies about her activities that day.

I
LOVE
HOW MOST OF THE SETPIECES ARE CONTEXTUALIZED

When Harry is fighting terrorists in the bathroom, gunfire spraying the walls, there's someone freaking out in one of the toilets. He peeks out of the stall when the fighting is over, pants still wrapped around his ankles. When Harry rides a horse into an elevator, a prim, highfalutin' rich couple is there to react with appropriate, hilarious awkwardness.

Until the third act, most of the action setpieces are contextualized by their impact on ordinary people. It provides a jolly counterpoint to already well-paced sequences, and keeps the audience rooted in the real world so they can appreciate the extravagance on display.

I
LOVE
TOM ARNOLD'S CHARACTER

Gib is what would happen if Garth from Wayne's World was somehow hired by the government and given a gun. He's a disturbed, chaotic madman, and his relentless, optimistic glee makes every revelation of his broken character a chortle-inducing surprise.

He may be my favorite part of this movie.

I
LOVE
JAMIE LEE CURTIS' AWKWARDNESS

I haven't seen many things with Jamie Lee Curtis so far, but I'm going to change that very soon. She's such a physical actress! Twitches, micro-expressions--when she finally lets loose dancing for the 'arms dealer', drops the bug in her bra, and then has to find a way to retrieve it. She communicates everything about her character seemingly effortlessly, with every motion. You can see exactly what's going through her mind at any moment. Even at the end of the movie, when she's working as a government agent, her tango would not be described as...perfect. She was a legal secretary a few months ago. Now, she's a spy, dancing with her husband in a fancy soiree and OWNING it.
Her awkwardness isn't faked.
It's real.

Her entire performance adds so much to what could be (and what might have been written as) a painfully undercharacterized stereotype. In fact, I'd say she's the single greatest grounding factor in a heightened movie that only grows moreso in its third act. 

I
LOVE
FAISAL

In a movie somewhat obsessed with a bizarro fetishization of a generic Arabic terrorist cell, Grant Heslov's Faisal is a welcome presence. He isn't just comic relief--but he is funny. He isn't just tech savvy--but he can crack an encryption. He shoots a couple of bad guys dudes at the end and if that isn't the representation every cultural group deserves in American action cinema, I don't know what is.

I
LOVE
BILL PAXTON
FOREVER

Simon wears the scummiest moustache known to mankind. He singlehandedly convinced me to remain clean-shaven until my dying day with one performance. He pisses himself by an overpass, cursing the day he was born. He pretends to be a spy to pick up women, and even that doesn't always result in the sex this amoral pervert craves. For Simon, the word of the day is "Hubris", every day.

Bill Paxton is incredibly good at playing incredibly pathetic, arrogant 'bad' guys that fall apart as soon as their facade is taken away. I miss him.

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True Lies was the first movie to have a budget topping $100 million. In many ways, James Cameron ushered the modern blockbuster model into existence--at least when it comes to accelerating the budgets given.

However, I think we can all agree that the greatest cultural impact of this incredibly polished gem is that it gave Arnold Schwarzenegger a standing desk.

beautiful