Film Review – The Whole Truth

In 2008, director Courtney Hunt collected critical acclaim for her debut feature, “Frozen River.” She excelled with the intimate character study, establishing nuance and vividness of location, promising a bright career to come. Momentum stopped, or at least slowed with work on television, but Hunt finally returns to screens with “The Whole Truth,” losing her indie spirit in the intervening years. Reviving the legal drama, once so popular in the 1970s and ‘80s, Hunt and screenwriter Rafael Jackson hope to recapture the thrill of sketchy testimony shared by shady witnesses, while touching on the iffy moral core of a lawyer in charge of shaping a version of reality to benefit his case. “The Whole Truth” is compelling, supported by an unusual cast, but Hunt doesn’t bring grit to this mainstream event, which gradually evolves into Grisham-esque nonsense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com