Telling Lies in America

A fictionalized account of hack screenwriter Joe Eszterhas' formative years as a Hungarian immigrant in Cleveland, this low-budget period piece is certainly more heartfelt than Eszterhas' million-dollar Hollywood scripts, but it's every bit as inept: the dialogue is hamhanded, the subtext crushingly blatant, and Big Joe remains enamored of such tired screenwriting devices as the Cutesy Ironic Twist. (Karchy [the very Hungarian-looking Brad Renfro], who has trouble with the English 'th' sound, repeatedly practices his pronunciation in the mirror with the phrase "and that's the truth!"--which he finally gets right the moment he stops lying. Egad.) Kevin Bacon, as a local DJ who befriends Karchy and winds up inadvertently teaching him valuable life lessons, gives a corker of a performance--he's much more at home in the '50s and '60s than in the present day, as Diner also attests--but his cocky grin and sharp delivery are all that this hackneyed, sentimental memoir has to recommend it. Not a necessary purchase. (M. D'Angelo)