Where Truth Lies (1996)

Found this film a complete spinner with flashbacks almost as soon as the picture begins. John Savage loses his wife in a horrible car accident with a truck and dives off a cliff and explodes. However, for some reason, John Savage begins to have dreams about his wife and this accident plays over and over again in his brain and it drives him crazy. Savage completely looses self control and winds up in a rehabilitation center where the head doctor treats his patients like animals in a cage. John Savage does have a very sexy nurse to take care of him and he has wild dreams about making love with her, so he is not completely nuts. If you like something to spin your own brain, watch this film and you will feel like you are in the SPIN ZONE and I forgot, the ending will blow your mind completely AWAY !

(There are Spoilers) Living with the tragic death of his first wife Wendy, Candice Daly, psychiatrist Dr. Ian Lazzare, John Savage, can't keep her out of his mind even after re-marrying a woman who's an exact replica of Wendy Teresa also Candice Daly with her blond hair colored black.Becoming a hopeless alcoholic Dr. Lazarre drinking become so acute that Teresa leaves him and that leads to Dr. Lazarre attempting to kill himself. Committed to the Blackhurst Instatute by Teresa and Dr. Lazarre's friend and personal lawyer John McNamra, Eric Pierpoint, Dr. Lazarre is put on drugs and kept from getting any sleep to shock him out of his drinking problems. But as we, and Dr. Lazare, also see his treatment has nothing at all to do with curing him but experimenting with his mind, or what's left of it, to see what make him tick with the experiments being conducted by the head of the institute the weird Dr. Vernon Requist, Malcolm McDowell.You have trouble with understanding the movie "Where Truth Lies" right from the start with Wendy's accident that later in the film turns out to be her murder. There's also this convict was treated by Dr. Lazarr who seemed to have later been executed a Jonas Keller, Denis Forest, who keeps popping up in the movie as if he were Dr. Lazarre's conscience or alter-ego. You at first think that Keller was the real reason for Wendy's death but it turns out that he had nothing to do with it so why is he made to be so important in the film not only in regard to Wendy's murder but to Dr. Lazarre himself?At the Blackhurst Institute were at first given the impression that Dr. Renquist and his head nurse Racquel Cambers, Kim Cattrall, are not what they seem to be. It's even indicted that Nurse Chambers is a junkie that Dr. Renquist experimented with like he's doing with Dr. Lzarre. But as the movie moves to it's surprising conclusion it obvious that all that information we get from the movie makers of "Where truth Lies" are red herrings to throw us off what's really going on and why Dr. Lazarre was committed in the institute in the first place.The big surprise in the movie is not that surprising at all since we get a good idea to who's behind Dr. Lazarre's interment and what the reasons are for it is. Which Dr. Lazarre himself realizes but after it's too late for him to stop the person from murdering his second wife Teresa like he did his first wife Wendy. Very depressing ending where the killer gets poor Dr. Lazarre implicated in Wendy's murder only after he himself is killed by an outraged Dr. Lazarre, who earlier escaped from the Blackhurst institute, only to end up being committed for life to a mental hospital for the criminally insane. Passable thriller with John Savage doing his best as a man being driven over the edge in order to cure him of an mental illness that he only got from being institutionalized to cure it when he didn't have it in the first place.

I watched this movie on a whim and boy was it lousy. The dialogue was flat, the characters were plastic, the plot was implausible and disjointed. This was a total waste of time. Kim Catrall, and Malcolm McDowell must be kicking themselves for doing this movie. Some of the dream sequences were interesting, but John Savage, the main character psychoanalyst, is a very weak leading man. I wonder if he ever was in a good movie. Even the murderer villain looks more like Fabio than a twisted killer. The hospital guard was laughable. This lummox obviously never acted before, nor would I ever believe that he could pass any exam needed to work in a mental hospital.

I thought the first 15 minutes of this mind-numbing psychiatric ward "torture de force" was the worse thing in the film... until the movie continued. By the middle of the film, the writer and the director hit rock bottom. But to my amazement, the crew took out pick-axes and shovels to reach new depths.The basic plot revolves around an alcoholic psychiatrist obsessed with his first wife's death. The poor soul is soon institutionalized, by his best friend and second wife, in some sort of experimental mental institution run by the medically curious. It is here that our protagonist realizes the hidden truths... or does he?The movie tries to be an intense psychological thriller with surprising plot twists. Instead, the film is a droning exploration of lackluster montages with as many surprises as your granny's navy bean soup! Save your four dollar rental fee for a Keanu Reeves movie, at least you know what to expect. And if this gem happens to be on cable... cancel your subscription immediately.