The Alibi

2006 "We keep your private life private."
6.3| 1h30m| R| en
Details

Con man Ray Elliot decides to leave crime behind to start a company that sells fake alibis to clients who have been unfaithful to their significant others. It seems that the streetwise Ray has found his calling, until he unexpectedly becomes a murder suspect in a case involving one of his most influential customers. Now, as the police and an assassin called "The Mormon" track Ray, he and his attractive assistant, Lola, must clear their own names.

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Reviews

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!
SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless
Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
MBunge This movie is like a gigantic tangle of string. I mean gigantic like the size of a big house with a two car garage on the end of a cul de sac. At first glance, the loops and twists and turns are impressive but it's really nothing more than one long, boring strand. The sheer size of it can be overwhelming but when you think about somebody spending so much time just tangling string, you're overwhelmed by such a wretched waste. As the string tangler should have stopped after a couple of hours and found something better to do, these filmmakers needed to stop piling one plot contrivance on another and make a single one of them work well.Let's see how far you can get into the plot of Lies and Alibis before you want to say "Enough!" and go watch an episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Ray Elliot (Steve Coogan) is a former con man who's found an unusual way to go straight. He runs a security firm for adulterers. When people want to cheat on their spouse, they hire Ray's company to cover up for them and provide them with airtight alibis. While in the midst of hiring the statuesque Lola (Rebecca Romijn) as a new associate, Ray is recognized by a thug (Henry Rollins) who mentions that there's a 5 million dollar contract out on Ray's old scam artist partner. Ray is then called away to deal with a client emergency and after helping the wealthy and horny Robert Hatch (James Brolin) conceal yet another affair from his wife, Ray is hired to help Hatch's son do the same. So while Wendell Hatch (James Marsden) spends the weekend at a bed and breakfast with his girlfriend, Ray pretends to be Wendell at a broker's convention to fool his wife.Are you still with me? Well, Wendell accidentally kills his girlfriend and cajoles Ray into covering that up, which he does by calling on the thug who recognized him. That thug works for a Mormon hit-man (Sam Elliot) who then decides that Ray absolutely must help him with alibis for his murderous work, which Ray seemingly consents to while dodging the amorous advances of one of the Mormon's wives (Selma Blair). Then Ray discovers that Robert Hatch is looking to kill him to permanently cover up for his son's deadly mistake, while the police have already traced the missing girl back to Ray, who also finds himself the target of Hatch's driver (John Lequizamo), the enraged boyfriend of Wendell's now dead girlfriend. There's also a cold blooded assassin coming after the 5 million dollar contract on Ray's old partner and a bit of confusion as to whether Ray knows where his old partner is, whether he's alive or dead or even if Ray is himself his old partner. Compounding that confusion is Ray's quest to find a corpse.And of course, Ray and Lola make googoo eyes at each other, even though she makes him look like a member of the Lollipop Guild, as Ray schemes to lure everyone involved in this whole snarl to a hotel where they can all get their just desserts.I don't know about you but by the time it got to the Mormon assassin, I had had just about enough of this movie. It was all too much to believe, especially when Ray is always portrayed as so slick and in control that there never seems to be even the slightest bit of danger in any of it. When you wade through it all, you're left with the reality that Ray is a long, boring strand. He's not interesting and he's certainly not sympathetic. So this convoluted tale boils down to there never being any real risk for the main character and the viewer not caring even if there was.Lies and Alibis might have found some way to work if it had focused on Ray and Lola, Ray's unusual business and one other thing. Maybe the problems posed by the Hatch's, maybe the people gunning for Ray's old partner, maybe the Mormon assassin who wants Ray to cover up his killings. Glopping them all and more into the mix doesn't work.Unless a house-sized tangle of string sounds to you like a great idea for a tourist attraction, don't bother with this film.
Tom Smith My wife and I loved "Lies & Alibis" it was a terrific, sophisticated, classy movie of the "Oceans Eleven" genre.My wife and I both had the same, singular complaint. The sound mixing was horrible. There were several occasions where the "background" music was too loud and despite repeated replays, we couldn't figure out what the character was saying.Despite the sound problems, the movie was FANTASTIC!!! It was a confluence of many disparate lives. It was a combination of the sophisticated "Oceans Eleven" and some of the sophistication of "The Thomas Crown Affair".The cast (Steve Coogan, Rebecca Romijn, Sam Elliot and James Marsden) were terrific. The script was flawless. It's a complex story of a confidence man who juggles many different "jobs" and all the fallout which can and/or does happen.If you liked the many faceted manipulations of strategy in Oceans Eleven and the sophistication of The Thomas Crown Affair, you'll love "Lies & Alibis".
gradyharp So states the risk management owner of a service that creates 'cover lies' for adulterous affairs. And up to a point that statement makes Ray Elliott (Steve Coogan) seem like an honest if distorted service provider, covering the tracks with high technology so that cheating husbands can have affairs without the danger of their wives' discovery.Smartly written by Noah Hawley and directed with style by Matt Checkowski and Kurt Mattila, LIES & ALIBIS delivers a new twist to suspense films laced with comedy yet filled with tension, murder, and all manner of underground derring-do. Ray Elliott is a smooth talker who manages to discreetly provide protection for business men who cheat on their wives using photographers to set up situations, falsifying credit cards and names and hotel room reservations, staging gifts for suspicious wives to stave off their concerns, etc. All proceeds well until Ray's primary client Robert Hatch (James Brolin) hires Ray to cover his son Wendell's (James Marsden) Santa Barbara bed and breakfast, pre-wedding escapade with a S&M girlfriend of one Hannibal (John Leguizamo) - a spree that carries out a bit too far in that the girl is dead by Wendell's inadvertent orders during the 'game'. Sam takes on the voluptuous Lola (Rebecca Romijn) as his new assistant and discovers she is as brainy as she is beautiful. He employs her to help his cover of the murder (Ray had switched IDs with Wendell in a planned alibi cover for the fling), breaking his own rules, and Lola ends up saving the day through a manner of crosses and double crosses that fling off the screen so fast that it takes powerful concentration to keep the story progress straight - just the way coordinated crime behaves! The manner in which this spree takes place involves a large cast including Jon Polito, Deborah Kara Unger, Selma Blair, Sam Elliott and a fine crew of bit players. Steve Coogan and Rebecca Romijn make the whole caper tick like a time bomb, giving the film elegance and just the right balance of noir and romance. The rapid-fire cinematography is by Enrique Chediak and the always dependable Alexandre Desplat provides the musical score (with a heavy nod to Offenbach's Barcarolle from 'Tales of Hoffman'). For an evening of fast-paced intrigue, romance, tension, and creative writing and acting, LIES & ALIBIS is a sure bet. Grady Harp
DICK STEEL A dream service for those adulterous men and women out there. A service which takes your calls, handles all potentially tense situations of private eyes and that suspecting spouse, essentially taking care of you on the side while you bang. Sounds good? I think so too, at least in a business sense.Ray Elliot (Steve Coogan) runs such a service. It's a money spinner, based on statistics that one in 4 men stray, and one in 10 women cheat. He advertises his risk management career through word of mouth, and takes pride in his job in bailing clients out of seemingly explosive marital situations. The pre-requisites? A calm cool mind that can spin out stories and tell them with a straight face.Lola Davis (the hot Rebecca Romijn) is his new management recruit, and without much orientation, plunges into the job head on. Initially you might think the movie will develop on the above company politics scenario, and have the two leads get involved with each other romantically. But no, before you can get to see the next fling, the movie heads on to classic crime noir territory.On his last field job, Ray's client accidentally kills his mistress in a bout of S&M, and it's up to Ray to clear the mess up, violating one of his principles that his company doesn't provide alibis for crime. However his reputation and integrity is on the line, and he has no choice but to cover it all up.And you'll probably wince at the amount of challenges Ray goes through in having this done, and having a price put out on his head. It's essentially one heck of a caper, as we witness how Ray Elliot schemes and plot to get his rear out of situations that's seemingly impossible, and incredibly lucky to get out of. It's full of crossings and double-crossings, and while you might be lost at certain plot points, just hang in there as all will converge for the finale, leaving you with a smirk, quite satisfied with the outcome.What's fun in this movie is the huge ensemble cast that play the many characters on screen. Another X-Men franchise regular, James Marsden (Cyclops) is here as the inept himbo Wendell Hatch, Ray Elliot's last client, and we have a myriad of characters like hit men, gangsters, cops, an unsatisfied wife, etc from a cast of Selma Blair, James Brolin, Sam Elliot, Jaime King, John Leguizamo, Deborah Kara Unger, and the likes.One thing's for sure, having a huge network of those whom you have deposited emotional or material help with, certainly will help bucket-loads when the time comes. If you're up for a caper, then I'd recommend The Alibi, for its fun.