The Whole Truth (2016) Review

Posted on the 03 January 2021 by Caz @LetsGoToTheMov7

Ramsey is attempting to work with his teenage client Mike who is accused of murdering his wealthy father Boone. A lot more to the case that it first seems even with the teen openly admitting that he killed him, did he really though?

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When I saw this film as the premiere on Sky Cinema in the UK I thought oh wow a courtroom drama, with Keanu Reeves and Renee Zellweger. Why haven't I even heard of this one? Well, sometimes you should think twice about why you haven't heard about a film before . . .

Everything seems quite straightforward to begin with though that Mike killed his father after witnessing his horrible behaviour of his mother Loretta. Not being able to cope with it anymore he snapped and even told police he did it. Ramsey being a family friend then becomes his lawyer but the build up to the case is not really very easy when he will not actually speak. This goes on for quite a bit and as other witnesses take to the stand we are shown different things in flashback form.

All of this is pretty standard and nothing out of the ordinary, with Ramsey trying to build a case up against the victim Boone. Showing that he was indeed a horrible man and that his violent behaviour towards his own wife as going to show that it was not Mike's fault for eventually snapping. We are told or its implied that he used to rape her as well as being violent.

SPOILERS

I am going to do something I don't normally do within a review and that's having some plot spoilers mainly because I was so utterly shocked with how bad taste the twists in the film started getting. At this point I started to realise why this film had been shelved and pretty much hidden for years. Mike wants to sit on the stand and eventually talk about his father. This is when he accuses him of raping him since he was a young boy, that this had happened again on the plane before they arrived home that day and he was told that it would happen again before he went away to college. Then for the next twist which made this even more sick was that Mike didn't kill him at all and it was Ramsey who was having an affair with Loretta. I mean trying to claim child sexual abuse was just way too far for me, lie truly sick towards anyone who had ever suffered. Mike had actually worked a lot of this out as well.

SPOILERS

So yes, this has to be one of the worst films I have seen. I really cannot get past that plot especially when everything seemed like it could be a rather decent courtroom drama. But no it was terrible and I urge you not to watch this at all. I'd rather not get into individual performances but will say that with the cast presented they were well and truly let down by the material.