CINEMA: Lies, True Lies and Ballistics

Hidden behind a two-way mirror, U.S. secret agent Harry Tasker is grilling a suspect. His voice electronically disguised, Harry pries and threatens until the suspect turns hysterical and throws a chair against the mirror. The interrogation victim is Harry's loving wife Helen. The spy has been having a little wicked fun.

What an odd action film True Lies is.

So far, 1994 has been a rough year for some acclaimed writer-directors. They spend all their ingenuity and a good deal of money putting a personal twist on an old genre -- Lawrence Kasdan with his Wyatt Earp western, James L. Brooks with the would-be musical I'll Do Anything, Barry Levinson with his behind- the-screen Jimmy Hollywood -- and what happens? A big nothing. The critics cluck; the public stays home in droves. One hates to see ambitious artists fail, even if their fizzles can be more provocative than the minor films that become major hits. But somehow these men became estranged from their audiences.

Could this fate befall James Cameron, Hollywood's most daring and extravagant auteur? Not bloody likely. An '80s-style artist-brigand, Cameron makes ripe allegories, often about the search for a redeemer, that are both personal and popular. The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day all took big risks, with film form and finance, that paid off. Cameron is a daredevil director: he goes skydiving without a chute and lands in clover.

Now he has produced an abrasive essay in gung-ho gigantism. True Lies is a remake of Claude Zidi's 1992 French film La Totale!, a teeny domestic farce about a spy (Thierry Lhermitte) whose neglected wife (Miou-Miou) thinks he works for the phone company. In Cameron's version, Schwarzenegger is the secret agent, Jamie Lee Curtis is his wife -- and the sky is the limit. Cameron has taken another out-of-favor genre (the James Bond thriller), welded it to romantic comedy and upped the ante until the fates of a marriage, the world and a few A-list reputations dangle in the balance.

If True Lies cost more than $100 million, so what? Hollywood frets when a huge-budget film is a flop (like Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero) and purrs when one is a hit (like T2). As Schwarzenegger notes, "The press thinks movie studios should be reviewed like the government -- as if public money were spent and a crime committed. Well, it's not their money, it's the studios' money. Sometimes money is spent wisely, sometimes not. But it's like that in every business."

To Cameron, moviemaking isn't just a business, it's an adventure. "I like to keep challenging myself," he says, "so I try different things. And a lot of the things I like to try are expensive. I will say what I say about every budget: the price of a ticket is $7.50, and you're getting a lot of movie for it. End of story."