The Good Liar

"Be careful. It's deeper than you think." - Betty McLeish.

You've gotta love the long con. The grift. It's never fun for the mark of course but it always is for us, the audience. There's something (almost) admirable about the craft involved, the patience on display, the slow worming under the skin, the fake friendships, the fake everything. It's a vicarious thrill and then when the rug is pulled it makes for compulsive viewing.

Roy (Ian McKellen) is a conman. He's the master of the swindle and his latest thing is preying on unsuspecting older women over the internet. Using dating sites he meets up with them, assesses their wealth and eventually takes them for everything they've got. He's in his 80's but he's still got plenty of get up and go to him. Betty (Helen Mirren) is a recently widowed woman in her 70's looking for companionship and her and Roy take a shine to each other, much to the chagrin of her protective grandson Steven (Russell Tovey).

Halfway through the Good Liar the story takes such a swift about turn that you're left sitting there wondering what the hell is going on. It's jarring and very out of place considering what's happened already. It's feels like bad storytelling and it's the kind of thing that could ruin a good film. But then slowly and surely things start falling into place, moments that confused you earlier suddenly make sense and a slight story starts to satisfy. In lesser hands it might all feel a bit silly and yeah, it's the kind of tale that will fall apart if you pull at the right strings but when you've two skilled practitioners of the craft onscreen weaving their magic it's easy to forgive the rough edges.

Helen Mirren. Ian McKellen. 103 years on the cinema screen between them. Indelible characters and performances created by both. Two lions in the winter of their career. These is the first time they've acted together and of course they spark off each other fantastically. Her Betty, warm and empathetic. His Roy, predatory and duplicitous. Oil and water but onscreen they fit each other like gloves. The type of performances from both that would raise the quality of whatever they star in. As good as Mirren is though McKellen steals the show here. Slime personified, his expression changing to hate when he gets the chance, Roy is a vile creation, a real piece of work, capable of bursts of rather shocking violence. In a film that will attract an older audience there's language and brutality here that will take a lot of people offguard.

The Good Liar is a film worth going into cold. It begins as one thing but ends as something very different altogether. It might stretch it's story back a lot further than you'd imagine but it's a cautionary tale for the now as well as the then. I hope we get to see Mirren and McKellen together again. You can't beat the old masters at work.