Where the Truth Lies

Year: 2005

Actors: Kevin Bacon, Alison Lohman, Colin Firth, Rachel Blanchard

Duration: 107 min

The film alternates between 1957 when Martin & Lewis-like comedy team Lanny Morris and Vince Collins are at the height of their success, and 1972 when journalist Karen O'Connor is determined to unravel the mystery of a young woman who was found dead in their hotel suite.Immediately after hosting a 39-hour-long polio telethon in a Miami television studio, Morris and Collins fly north to discuss opening the showroom in a new Las Vegas hotel constructed by mobster Sally Sanmarco. In their Atlantic City hotel suite, the body of college student Maureen O'Flaherty is found in a bathtub filled with water, but since both men were en route to the hotel at the time she was murdered, neither is thought to be connected to the crime. Shortly after, their partnership is dissolved.Fifteen years later, Karen who as a young polio survivor met the team at the telethon becomes part of a $1 million deal to ghostwrite Vince's autobiography, a project complicated by the fact she keeps receiving anonymously sent chapters from a book about the one-time duo Lanny himself has written. She first meets Lanny, accompanied by his faithful valet Reuben, on a transcontinental flight, during which she introduces herself as Bonnie Trout, the name of the best friend with whom she's trading apartments. The two meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant and later become intimate in Lanny's hotel room. The next morning, Karen awakens to discover Lanny has checked out without saying goodbye.She later meets Vince and, using her own name, begins to interview him for the book. Complications arise when Vince invites her to dinner at his Los Angeles home and she learns Lanny will be joining them as well. She abruptly excuses herself but meets Lanny in the driveway. As the two are talking they are confronted by Vince, and Karen's masquerade is revealed.Vince agrees to continue to cooperate with the book, but he has an ulterior motive. Plying Karen with wine and drugs, he strips her completely naked and manipulates her into having sexual intercourse with an aspiring singer named Alice and photographs the two in compromising positions. He threatens to use them to humiliate Karen if he's displeased with what she writes but she turns the tables on him and, undaunted continues investigating until learning the truth - Vince was bisexual and after an unfortunate incident revealed this to Maureen. Lanny tried to bribe her to keep quiet, but Maureen wanted more than Lanny was willing to offer, so Reuben murdered her to cover it up. Vince later commits suicide, and Karen decides not to reveal the truth to Maureen's mother.

Genre: Action   Crime   Drama   Mystery   Thriller