Pack of Lies (1987)

Very well executed

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Terri Garr's performance is perhaps her very best. It taps into her effervescent goofiness and subverts it into a rich and complex cover for evil. At the end she looks like 'Mother Russia' in her loose prison clothes, hair hanging limp, face ravaged by a life of deceit, lies and betrayal.I find it rather shocking that other reviewers blame the British security officers rather than the deadly dangerous atomic spies they are hunting down for 'deceiving' the middle class family. Ellen Burstyn gives a 100% to the role but when doesn't she? Terri is the real acting surprise. Her character doesn't 'tell' lies' she IS a living lie. Terrifying.Interesting to note that this was based on a true story AND was a fairly successful Broadway play as well.

As few people pointed out,this is based on the true story of Morris and Lona Cohen,an American couple who were spying for the KGB and lived in England when they were arrested in 1961.This TV movie made from the play of the same name,is about an also real couple,Bill and Ruth Search,and their daughter,who lived across the Cohens,and whose house was used by MI5 to watch on the Cohens. In real life,the Searches and the Cohens of course knew each other and were friends but there is no evidence that they were especially close as this movie shows them to be.This story over-dramatizes this situation,making Ruth Search incredibly attached to Lona Cohen,to the point that when the latter is arrested,it breaks Ruth's heart.Even as a play however,is hard to believe,because we are told the two women have been friends for about 3 years,they were not lifelong friends,and Ruth Search(Burstyn) in the play and movie still has her husband and daughter to care for,she is not a lonely woman.The shock of the true identity of their neighbors is true enough but the complete breakdown of Ruth is not justified in any way.Still,the movie is interesting ,in the fact that it is based in the unusual story of the Cohen couple who after being imprisoned 8 years for spying,returned to Russia.

Television adaptation of Hugh Whitemore's play about an older British couple in a suburb of London circa 1961 learning from the police that their best friends of three years--a Canadian couple who live across the road--may be involved with a notorious Russian spy. Not-bad "Hallmark Hall of Fame" production is a bare-bones dramatic presentation coasting on the performances of its cast, with the emphasis on Ellen Burstyn as the otherwise-friendless housewife who feels betrayed by chatty, lively neighbor Teri Garr. Garr is working seriously here, but there's too many close-ups of her looking puzzled, asking the same redundant questions; Burstyn fares a bit better, even if her accent comes and goes (which can be overlooked). Still, Ellen's character deteriorates under the pressure of falsehood far too soon (everyone, at some point, becomes a liar in this teleplay--a gimmick that is heightened in the dialogue but, thankfully, not underscored too strenuously). The downbeat conclusion--and the two useless melodramatic tags--is unsatisfying, as is Alan Bates' role (and over-the-top performance) as a British agent. Worth-seeing for the intriguing first-half, but the hysteria which follows feels canned.

I saw this film when it first came out. I just rented it from Netflix after all these years. This story has the same power and gut wrenching scenes that I remembered.Ellen Burstyn and Teri Garr had the talent to make this production exceptional. Alan Bates does well portraying Stewart, a weaselly little master manipulator who works for MI5.This story is close to a documentary of the investigation and arrest of Helen and Peter Kroger. Their best friends and neighbors, Bill and Ruth Search serve as a communications link for the KGB in England.Ruth is manipulated into betraying her best friend of 10 years, Helen. It becomes apparent at the end of the film that Ruth cannot live with what she has done. The film also makes clear that friendship supersedes current politics or at least should.Fortunately for the Searches, they were traded out of prison for an English agent arrested in Russia. Their neighbor Ruth did not fare so well. The Searches served 8 years for espionage. This film is heartbreaking but well done. Don't see this if you like happy endings.