True Lies (1994)
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A secret agent struggles to balance his high-stakes double life as a spy with his responsibilities as a husband and father.
The story
Harry Tasker is a man with a double life: to his wife and daughter, he appears to be a mild-mannered computer hardware salesman, but he is actually a secret agent for the elite counterterrorism agency, Omega Sector. While infiltrating a high-stakes party in Switzerland, Harry's mission becomes complicated when he encounters a terrorist organization. Following a series of events that lead him to believe his wife is having an affair, Harry orchestrates a staged spy mission for her to satisfy her desire for adventure. However, the staged scenario spirals out of control as real threats emerge, forcing the couple to confront the truth of Harry's secret profession.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Harry Tasker leads a double life as a secret agent for Omega Sector while posing as a hardware salesman to his wife, Helen, and daughter, Dana. During a mission in Switzerland, he encounters the terrorist group Crimson Jihad. After a misunderstanding leads him to believe Helen is having an affair with a man named Simon, Harry creates a fake spy mission for her to 'seduce' a target. The ruse is interrupted when the real terrorists, led by Salim Abu Aziz, capture both Harry and Helen. They are taken to an island in the Florida Keys where they discover the truth of Harry's career and a plot to detonate nuclear warheads. After a violent escape, the couple must stop the terrorists from moving the warheads to the mainland. Following a series of action-packed set pieces, including a high-speed chase and a rescue mission in Miami, Harry saves his daughter and defeats Aziz. The film concludes a year later with Harry and Helen working together as agents, while they encounter Simon again, who is still pretending to be a spy.
- First release year
- 1994
- Runtime (minutes)
- 141
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- James Cameron
- Writers
- James Cameron · writer
- Cast and characters
- Arnold Schwarzenegger · Harry Tasker; Jamie Lee Curtis · Helen; Tom Arnold · Simon; Bill Paxton; Art Malik; Tia Carrere; Eliza Dushku; Charlton Heston
- Genres
- action; comedy
- Themes
- double lives; marriage; terrorism
- Tone and mood
- action; humor
- Premise and plot tags
- spy; comedy; action; undercover
- Source material / true-story basis
- La Totale!
- Content notes
- violence
- Reception
- The film received mostly positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1994.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 77% · scale: percentage · review count: 135; Metacritic · score: 63 · scale: 100 · review count: 17
- Awards and nominations
- Golden Globe Award · Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy · win; Saturn Award · Best Actress · win; Saturn Award · Best Director · win
- Production trivia
- It was the first film to cost $100 million.; The film was the first Lightstorm Entertainment project to be distributed under Cameron's multimillion-dollar production deal with 20th Century Fox.; It was the first film to use the 1994 20th Century Fox logo and fanfare adapted and conducted by Bruce Broughton.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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