Big Fat Liar Is an Honest-to-Goodness Delight

I get asked quite often, "Durg, why the movies? Why do you do what you do? Gimme the TRUTH." Hey, I can't lie, it's mostly the nudity. Bless Hollywood, I see more nudity on an annual basis than most married guys in the privacy of their own homes. Alright, I am fibbing. I go to the movies mainly to be surprised. Corny, I know. But that's the truth. I love going to a movie and being surprised at the discovery of a little gem.

And that is what Big Fat Liar is. A surprising little gem of a kid's movie.

I also must be truthful in telling you that I barely thought about Big Fat Liar before going to see it. I had the preview pass for this movie sitting on my desk for nearly a week, and I barely gave it a second thought. To me, it was just a date and a time. Another assignment. The pass, though, stood out somewhat because it was bright and yellow and featured the smiling faces of child stars Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes. I'd even seen a few commercials during my afternoon cartoon hopping (mostly because I'm a Big Fat Child). The ads made the movie look cute, but again, not a thought in my head.

Maybe that's a good thing. Big Fat Liar completely won me over. This is a delightful, silly, and smart children's fantasy, folks. If you have kids, or if you are a kid, this is the movie of the moment.

Muniz, the star of Malcolm in the Middle, plays a ninth-grade con artist named Jason Shepherd. Jason lies about everything: eating his oatmeal, doing his homework, playing his video games when he should be getting ready for school. Basically, me circa 1984. His fibs are innocent ones. Jason isn't a bad kid. No drugs or drinking or anything like that. He's just into mischief, doing the things he wants to do when he wants to do them. He's a fast talker, a quick thinker, and a bit of a charmer.

Eventually, though, he is caught in one of his lies after failing to write a 1,000-word essay that counts for a third of his grade in an English class. The teacher gives him only three hours to turn the assignment in or be sentenced to summer school. Jason is on his way to hand in the essay when he's nearly run over by evil Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (the irrepressible Paul Giamatti). Wolf hasn't had a hit movie in years. When he sees Jason's essay, essentially a short story titled Big Fat Liar, Wolf steals it and makes it his next project.

Jason tries to explain, but neither his teacher nor his parents believe him. When he sees the disappointed look in his father's eyes, he knows what he has to do. The rest of the film has Jason teaming up with his friend Kaylee (Bynes) and traveling to Hollywood in an effort to clear his name.

Big Fat Liar appeals because it gives kids a terrific "What if?" scenario. The film believably gets Jason and Kaylee (both sets of parents go on vacation, leaving Jason with his slacker sister and Kaylee with her senile, blind grandma) to Tinseltown and onto the Universal Studios backlot where Wolf's offices are. Once there, the movie turns into both a bubble-gum-soft riff on the movie industry and an elaborate revenge fantasy against the cartoonishly evil producer.

Giamatti hams it up gloriously as Wolf, insulting every single person he comes in contact with. For example, upon meeting his new film's sixtysomething stunt coordinator (Lee Majors, still wooden after all these years) for the first time, he promptly cracks, "That stunt was original back in the '20s, Methusalah! We're doing talkies now!"

Wolf thinks he is the baddest of the bad. He has no problems lying, scheming, and cheating his way to the top. In Jason, though, he's met his match. The kid ends up making Wolf's life a living Hell. At one point, Jason puts blue dye in the guy's pool and red gel in his shampoo, turning Giamatti into a cross between the Blue Man Group and Bozo the Clown. Then, Jason messes with his car, then his schedule. He doesn't so much want a cut of the Big Fat Liar movie's gross. He just wants Wolf to call his father and tell him that he didn't lie.

Muniz does a good job of not making Jason too much of an annoying smart aleck. The kid brings a sincerity to the role that makes him a winning hero. Bynes, meanwhile, is the real find. The Nickelodeon favorite has great fun playing Jason's somewhat reluctant partner in crime. Her gift for accents is quite extraordinary, though, as several times Jason has her imitate various people over the phone (a nasal secretary, a Valley girl, a Southern belle). The two kids dig each other, but they're at that stage of their adolescence where they don't quite know what to do or say to each other. Six more months (or, who I am kidding, hours) and I'll bet Frankie has learned to remove the blouse and training bra in one swift motion like a real player.

I digress.

Hey, I don't want to over-sell this movie. Big Fat Liar is strictly Saved by the Bell kiddie-fantasy material. I do think there are enough neat, little touches thrown in for the grown-ups. The soundtrack features such '80s hits as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Eye of the Tiger." The script was written by former Head of the Class cast members Brian Robbins and Dan Schneider. And there are some delightful riffs on everything from movie trailers to studio tours to Steven Soderbergh.

Be honest. Is this the kind of flick that appeals to you? If so, grab some popcorn and have some fun with it.

Big Fat Liar is rated PG for some mild, mild language.

Paul Giamatti also appears in the new film, Storytelling, as a sad-sack documentary producer looking to chronicle a high-school slacker's attempts to get into college. This dark comedy, written and directed by Todd Solondz, is not for the kids in the audience. Separated into two parts titled "Fiction" and "Nonfiction," it's a bit unfocused. The filmmaker has some good ideas, but needed to flesh out the barely 90-minute concept.