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Bad casting damages 'Where the Truth Lies'

There's an old saw that says 90 percent of directing a movie is casting. If that's true, Canadian director Atom Egoyan had about 10 percent of "Where the Truth Lies" to work with, because baffling casting all but sinks a picture that had the potential to be ... well, not quite as trashy and irritating as it ends up.

ThinkFilm 'Where The Truth Lies' 2 out of 5 stars Director: Atom Egoyan Starring: Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, Alison Lohman, Rachel Blanchard, David Hayman Run time: 106 minutes Release date: Oct. 14, 2005 Rating: Not rated; NC-17 rating declined. Includes sexual situations, nudity, language, violence, drug use. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Where The Truth Lies'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

"Truth" has the intentions of an art film, the latex soul of a "Skinemax" erotic thriller and the inner logic of a quickie dime novel, even if it was based on novelist Rupert Holmes' well-regarded riff on Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and the possibly sordid story behind the end of their partnership.

Fifteen years after a trauma severed manic Jewish comic Lanny Morris and his British (yes, British) partner Vince Collins, young and easily obsessed journalist Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman, breathy, alternating between vulnerable and ambitious, and seemingly acting in a whole different film) tries to unpack the truth about the disintegration of their legendary partnership. Was it sex? Murder? Money? The mob? All of the above?

The problem is, at minimum, two-fold, namely Kevin Bacon as Lewis stand-in Morris and Colin Firth as the mystifyingly British Collins. Bacon nails the sleazy aftermath of a career gone to seed. He delivers the line, "Having to be a nice guy is the toughest thing in the world if you're not," with a perfect blend of sadness and sublimated danger. But he doesn't work as the younger and crazy Morris, acting almost psychotically goofy in front of the telethon cameras. And Firth seems lost as Collins. The actor doesn't look like he knows why's he's Martin's surrogate, and that sure doesn't help the audience.

Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter") directs with his typical cool control, but the film never gels into a chain of events we care about. The explicit sex originally landed "Truth" an NC-17 (it was eventually released without a rating), but not even that can save it. The knotty, "Rashomon"-ish plot launches from an improbable coincidence and just keeps getting more implausible, climaxing with a revelation that's so pat that it's a well-known aphorism, perhaps the very definition of cliche.

The truth sets nobody free.