Pack of Lies (1987)

hyped garbage

Fresh and Exciting

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Terri Garr's performance is perhaps her very best. It taps into her effervescent goofiness and subverts it into a rich and complex cover for evil. At the end she looks like 'Mother Russia' in her loose prison clothes, hair hanging limp, face ravaged by a life of deceit, lies and betrayal.I find it rather shocking that other reviewers blame the British security officers rather than the deadly dangerous atomic spies they are hunting down for 'deceiving' the middle class family. Ellen Burstyn gives a 100% to the role but when doesn't she? Terri is the real acting surprise. Her character doesn't 'tell' lies' she IS a living lie. Terrifying.Interesting to note that this was based on a true story AND was a fairly successful Broadway play as well.

As few people pointed out,this is based on the true story of Morris and Lona Cohen,an American couple who were spying for the KGB and lived in England when they were arrested in 1961.This TV movie made from the play of the same name,is about an also real couple,Bill and Ruth Search,and their daughter,who lived across the Cohens,and whose house was used by MI5 to watch on the Cohens. In real life,the Searches and the Cohens of course knew each other and were friends but there is no evidence that they were especially close as this movie shows them to be.This story over-dramatizes this situation,making Ruth Search incredibly attached to Lona Cohen,to the point that when the latter is arrested,it breaks Ruth's heart.Even as a play however,is hard to believe,because we are told the two women have been friends for about 3 years,they were not lifelong friends,and Ruth Search(Burstyn) in the play and movie still has her husband and daughter to care for,she is not a lonely woman.The shock of the true identity of their neighbors is true enough but the complete breakdown of Ruth is not justified in any way.Still,the movie is interesting ,in the fact that it is based in the unusual story of the Cohen couple who after being imprisoned 8 years for spying,returned to Russia.

***SLIGHT SPOILERS*** This movie is about two Families who are close friends and they do everything together. They go to art class, shopping and they visit each other. They have such a bond with each other, they're lives are wrapped up in this friendship--there's nothing that can break up this friendship.......or is there??????Underneath the apparent innocence of Helen(Terri Garr)and her husband Peter is a dirty secret-they are both Russian spies. One day, a British agent named Stewart(Alan Bates)pays them a visit. He tells them that they are looking for a man who has been seen in the neighborhood by the name of Powell. Stewart Asks them to corporate with them-so he can keep an eye on the neighborhood from their upstairs bedroom window. If that was all there was to it-then it's not too bad....but it goes from bad to worse.When Powell is seen leaving Helen & Peter's, the chain of events that follows is the beginning of a fall-from which there was no getting up from. Barbara(Ellen Burstyn) and her husband are asked by British agents to allow them to spy on Helen & peter-24 hours a day. A 24 hour watch as they call it. And of course, they had to maintain secrecy. This means a pack of lies-not only on the part of Helen & Peter-but Barbara had to lie too-to maintain secrecy. They could not under any circistances let Helen & Peter know what is going on.I know how easy it is to feel for Barbara & her husband, after all they were lied to & been betrayed by their best friends. There's another issue here-that is national security. Helen & Peter are guilty of passing classified information to the Russians-this constitutes espionage-and It is against the law. And it's very dangerous. They violated the law-so they go to prison.It's a shame, isn't? to have best friends-who are spies?

I saw this film when it was first presented on network TV sponsored by Hallmark Hall of Fame.What we see is a beautifully made film about, Love, friendship and deceit. The movie is set in the early sixties and is about the lives of basically two families are have become close over the years.Ellen Burstyn gives an outstanding performance as a British homemaker who spends her days happily performing the tasks of her simple life while enjoying a close friendship with the neighbor across the street played by Teri Garr. We watch as both families happily intermingle and enjoy their lives until one day a British agent appears at the door of Burstyn explaining that they are looking for a spy who seemed to be operating in their neighborhood and soon after the agents set up a surveilance from the house. From this point on in the movie we experience the drama of a family trying to hide thier fears. We see Burstyn on the brink of a breakdown knowing in her heart that she was deceived by the only true friend she had. We see even before she does that the Garr charecter and her husband are not what they appear to be making the the final realization of Burstyn that mush more heartbreaking...I taped this film back in 1987 and have watched it often and it still has a profound effect on me......