True Lies

True Lies is a 1994 American action comedy film written and directed by James Cameron, based on the 1991 French comedy film La Totale!.^[4] The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Harry Tasker, a U.S. government agent who struggles to balance his double life as a spy with his familial duties. Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Art Malik, and Tia Carrere star in supporting roles. True Lies was the first Lightstorm Entertainment project to be distributed under Cameron’s multimillion-dollar production deal with 20th Century Fox, as well as the first major production for the visual effects company Digital Domain, which was co-founded by Cameron. It was also the first film to cost $100 million.

True Lies received mostly positive reviews from critics, and ultimately grossed $378 million worldwide at the box office, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1994.^[6] For her performance, Curtis won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Saturn Award for Best Actress, while Cameron won the Saturn Award for Best Director. It was also nominated at the Academy Awards and BAFTAs in the Best Visual Effects category, and also for seven Saturn Awards.

Plot[ – True Lies

To his wife, Helen, and his daughter Dana, Harry Tasker is a salesman for business software often away on business trips, but in actuality, he is a secret agent for Omega Sector, a top-secret U.S. counterterrorism agency. Harry, along with his teammates Albert “Gib” Gibson and Faisil, infiltrates a party in Switzerland hosted by billionaire Jamal Khaled. There, Harry meets art dealer Juno Skinner. She turns out to not only be Khaled’s art dealer, but someone paid by “Crimson Jihad”, a terrorist faction led by Salim Abu Aziz. Undercover as a potential buyer, Harry visits her, leading the terrorists to attempt to kill him. Harry fights them off, but loses Aziz in pursuit. As a result, he misses the birthday party that Helen and Dana had planned for him.

Harry goes to Helen’s office the next day to smooth matters over, but overhears her making secret arrangements to meet someone named Simon. Suspecting Helen is having an affair, he uses Omega Sector resources to learn that Simon is a used car salesman who pretends to be a covert agent to seduce women. In disguise, Harry and other Omega agents kidnap Helen and Simon. After terrifying Simon into keeping away from Helen, Harry and Gib interrogate her using a voice masking device. They learn she is suffering a midlife crisis and is desperately seeking adventure. Harry thus arranges for Helen to participate in a staged spy mission, where she is to seduce a mysterious figure (who is actually Harry) and plant a bug in his hotel room. Aziz’s men burst in, kidnap the couple, and take them to an island in the Florida Keys.

On the island, Harry learns Crimson Jihad paid Juno to help the group smuggle four MIRV nuclear warheads by hiding them in antique statues. Aziz demands that the United States remove their forces from the Persian Gulf, or else he will weekly detonate a warhead in a major U.S. city. He will also detonate one warhead on the uninhabited island to demonstrate Crimson Jihad’s nuclear power. Before being tortured with Helen, Harry is administered a truth serum and confesses his double life to her. They escape and learn that one warhead is set to explode in 90 minutes while the others are loaded onto vehicles to be taken into the U.S. via the Overseas Highway, thus bypassing U.S. Customs. In the ensuing melee, Harry and Helen kill most of the terrorists, while Aziz gets away with one of the warheads. Helen is caught by Juno and taken in a limousine following the convoy. Gib and other Omega agents pick up Harry. They use two Marine jets to intercept the convoy by destroying part of the Seven Mile Bridge. Harry rescues Helen from the limo before it falls off the Highway, killing Juno in the process.

The warhead left on the island detonates without killing anyone. Harry discovers that Aziz and his men are holding Dana hostage in a Miami skyscraper and are threatening to detonate their last warhead. Harry commandeers one of the jets to rescue her. Faisil gets into the building by posing as a news cameraman. When Faisil kills several of Aziz’s men, Dana steals the missile control key and flees to the roof, eventually climbing a tower crane. Aziz pursues and nearly catches her before Harry arrives. Harry rescues Dana, and after a struggle with Aziz, he has him ensnared on the end of one of the plane’s missiles, which Harry fires at a terrorist helicopter, killing Aziz and the remnants of Crimson Jihad. Harry, Helen, and Dana are safely reunited.

A year later, Harry and Helen are working together as Omega agents. While on a mission at a formal party, they encounter Simon, working as a waiter and pretending to be a spy. He runs away in fear after they reveal themselves and threaten to kill him. They dance while waiting for their contact and with Gib pleading with them to take their work seriously.

Cast – True Lies

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Harry Tasker
Jamie Lee Curtis as Helen Tasker
Tom Arnold as Albert “Gib” Gibson
Bill Paxton as Simon
Tia Carrere as Juno Skinner
Art Malik as Salim Abu Aziz
Eliza Dushku as Dana Tasker
Grant Heslov as Faisil
Charlton Heston as Spencer Trilby

Marshall Manesh portrays Jamal Khaled. James Allen portrays a colonel. Ofer Samra portrays Yusif.

Production – True Lies

Arnold Schwarzenegger stated that while filming a scene with a horse, a camera boom hit the horse and “it went crazy, spinning and rearing” near a drop of 90 feet (27 m). Schwarzenegger quickly slid off the horse and a stuntman caught him; he concluded, “[this is] why I will always love stunt people”.^[7] Art Malik said he was drawn to the script’s “pantomime quality” and the chance to work with director James Cameron.^[8] Costing $100^[2]^[3]–120^[4]^[9] million to produce, True Lies was the first film with a production budget of over $100 million.^[10] It was filmed over a seven-month schedule.^[4]

Eliza Dushku stated that while filming True Lies at the age of twelve, she was sexually molested by the film’s stunt coordinator, Joel Kramer. According to Dushku, soon after that, an adult friend of hers confronted Kramer on set, and that same day, Dushku was injured during a stunt and several of her ribs were broken, while Kramer was responsible for her safety.^[11] Kramer has denied the accusation of sexual misconduct.^[12] Dushku’s co-stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, and director James Cameron all voiced support and admiration for Dushku’s bravery.^[13]^[14]^[15]

Of the many locations that were used in the film, the Rosecliff Mansion was used for the ballroom tango scenes in the beginning of the film and the exterior of the Swiss chalet that Harry Tasker infiltrates is Ochre Court.^[16] The ballroom dancing scene that closes the film, as well as the scenes in the lobby of the fictional Hotel Marquis in Washington, take place in the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.^[17] The outdoor structures used by Aziz’s smuggling ring as a base of operations were a series of custom made Alaska Structures fabric buildings, leased to the production crew during filming.^[18]