Career con artist Roy Courtnay (Sir Ian McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Dame Helen Mirren) on-line. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.... (Full plot summary below)
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Career con artist Roy Courtnay (Sir Ian McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Dame Helen Mirren) on-line. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.
Leave your thoughts about The Good Liar.
| San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleThe back and forth, the listening and reacting between Mirren and McKellen, as each of their characters gauges the other and as we mark the incremental shifts and exchanges of power, is pure pleasure. |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawThis movie rattles along with terrific energy and dash and the flashback sequences show that it’s actually far more daring and ambitious that you might expect. It’s a great duel between McKellen and Mirren. |
| VarietyOwen GleibermanThe pleasure of The Good Liar, and it’s a major one, is the chance to watch Mirren and McKellen act together in a cat-and-mouse duet that turns into an elegant waltz of affection and deception. |
| The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldAs a movie, The Good Liar is just so-so, but as a master class in performance and star quality, it’s a pleasure. |
| New York PostJohnny OleksinskiA taut thriller, The Good Liar keeps you guessing ’til its explosive end. Director Bill Condon’s film is based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, and builds much in the same way a book does. You gotta get through the first 30 pages to become fully absorbed. |
| Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovThe Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart. |
| Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranPerhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story. |
| IndieWireDavid EhrlichPleasant and preposterous in almost precisely equal measure, the film never offers anything less than two all-time British actors having the time of their lives, which makes it hard to get frustrated that it seldom offers anything more. |
| EmpireDavid HughesMcKellen and Mirren, sharing the screen for the first time, are exquisitely matched in this slight but enjoyable yarn, which is like watching two magnificent vintage cars in a road race, without minding too much who wins. |
| RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiAs a whole, The Good Liar is not quite good enough to deserve the comparisons to the works of Alfred Hitchcock it's clearly aiming for, though it is just good enough to suggest what Hitchcock himself might have done with it on a second pass. |
