Big Fat Liar is a 2002 American teen comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, written and produced by Dan Schneider and Brian Robbins, and starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, and Amanda Bynes. The film involves a 14-year-old pathological liar named Jason Shepherd (Muniz), whose creative writing assignment is stolen by an arrogant Hollywood producer named Marty Wolf (Giamatti), who plans to use it to make the fictional film of the same name.
Plot[]
Jason Shepherd is a 14-year-old compulsive liar and slacker living in the fictional city of Greenbury, Michigan. Jason tries to get out of his one thousand-word creative writing essay by making up a lie, but gets caught by his eighth-grade English teacher, Phyllis Caldwell, who alerts his parents. He is given three hours to submit his essay or he will fail English and repeat it in summer school. Jason uses his talent for lying to write a story titled "Big Fat Liar". While riding his sister's old bike to turn in the essay, Jason is run over by the limousine of an arrogant Hollywood screenwriter and producer, Marty Wolf, and he convinces Marty to give him a ride. Marty is in town shooting his action comedy film Whitaker and Fowl. During the ride, Marty admits he also tells lies and that the truth is overrated. In a rush, Jason accidentally leaves his essay in the limo when it falls out of his backpack. Marty is inspired by the story when he reads it and decides to keep it for himself. Realizing his essay is missing, Jason tries to explain what happened, but neither his parents nor Caldwell believe him and he is sent to summer school to repeat English.
Jason and his best friend, Kaylee, later discover Marty has plagiarized Jason's essay into a film when they see a trailer for it at the movie theater. During the long weekend, they fly to Los Angeles while their parents are out of town, and Jason and Kaylee sneak into Marty’s office at his eponymous studio to request that Marty confess to his parents, only for Marty to purposefully burn Jason's essay and call security to remove them. Angered, they decide to inconvenience him until he confesses. Marty's former limo driver and struggling actor, Frank Jackson, agrees to help Jason and Kaylee get him back because of his own troubled history with him. They sabotage Marty through a number of pranks, like dying his skin blue and hair orange, super gluing his headset to his ear, tricking him into going to a child's birthday party, where the children mistake him for the hired clown and beat him up, and tampering the controls to his car, causing it to malfunction and play Eiffel 65's 1998 song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)". Marty's car is also rear-ended by a cranky elderly woman, knocking it forward into a violent monster truck owned by a wrestler known as The Masher. Thinking Marty nearly hit him, The Masher destroys his car with his truck.
Marty plans to produce Big Fat Liar with Universal Pictures, but Marcus Duncan, the newly-appointed president of Universal, loses confidence in Marty after the critical and box office failure of his latest film Whitaker and Fowl. Marcus declines to approve the budget for Big Fat Liar, so Jason agrees to help Marty in exchange for his confession to his parents. With Jason's advice, Marty makes a successful presentation which gets the film approved by Universal, but Marty subsequently betrays Jason and calls security to remove him and Kaylee for the second time. Marty's assistant, Monty Kirkham, has grown tired of his behavior and treatment of her and decides to help Jason and Kaylee to expose him. They gather Marty's other tormented employees and devise a plan to expose him, while Jason has his parents fly to Los Angeles after admitting to them what he did the whole weekend.
The next morning, Marty heads to the studio to begin filming Big Fat Liar, but his employees delay him through a number of mishaps. As Marty finally arrives, he encounters Jason, who kidnaps his stuffed monkey toy, Mr. Funnybones. Jason flees across the studio, luring Marty to a rooftop where he retrieves his toy and mocks Jason for trying to make him confess, admitting his actions, arrogantly believing no one is listening or ever will, and proclaiming he will never tell the truth to anyone, believing the truth to be overrated. However, the entire conversation is revealed to have been caught on camera and is witnessed by Jason's parents, the media, and Marcus, who immediately fires Marty for his actions. Jason thanks Marty for teaching him an important lesson about the truth not being overrated. Marty insanely laughs, angrily threatens to get him back and furiously tries to attack him, but luckily, Jason leaps off the building, and safely lands on a stunt cushion, where he finally regains his parents' trust.
At the end of the film, Universal produces Big Fat Liar after Marty's firing while using the skills of people whom he had abused. The film becomes a critical success, with Jason receiving full credit for writing his original story, pleasing his parents and Ms. Caldwell. Meanwhile, Marty declares bankruptcy and begins a new job as a birthday clown. During a visit to a birthday party, Darren, the birthday boy and son of the Masher, the wrestler and monster truck driver who he provoked earlier, kicks Marty in his crotch, at his father's request.
Cast[]
- Frankie Muniz as Jason Shepherd, a 14-year-old compulsive liar and slacker.
- Paul Giamatti as Marty Wolf, a Hollywood screenwriter and producer and founder of the fictional Marty Wolf Pictures film studio, which is associated with Universal Pictures: unlike Jason, Marty does not care how his lies affect other people.
- Amanda Bynes as Kaylee, Jason's best friend, whom he often talks into helping out with his lies and schemes.
- Amanda Detmer as Monty Kirkham, Marty's long suffering assistant who goes on to adapt and produce Jason's story Big Fat Liar with Universal Pictures.
- Donald Faison as Frank Jackson, Marty's former limo driver and a struggling actor who helps Jason and Kaylee in their mission to get him back after being unfairly fired by him the year before: he goes on to star in the fictional Big Fat Liar film.
- Sandra Oh as Ms. Phyllis Caldwell, Jason and Kaylee's eighth-grade English teacher.
- Russell Hornsby as Marcus Duncan, who is promoted from vice-president to president of Universal Pictures.
- Michael Bryan French as Harry Shepherd, Jason's father.
- Christine Tucci as Carol Shepherd, Jason's mother.
- Lee Majors as Vince, an aging, but nevertheless qualified, stunt coordinator.
- Amy Hill as Jocelyn Davis, the senior vice-president of publicity at Marty Wolf Pictures.
- John Cho as Dusty Wong, the director of the fictional Big Fat Liar film.
- Matthew Frauman as Lester Golub, a computer and special effects expert.
- Sparkle as Grandma Pearl, Kaylee's senile grandmother.
- Taran Killam as Bret Callaway, a dim-witted skateboard punk who consistently bullies Jason and is tutored by Kaylee.
- Alex Breckenridge as Janie Shepherd, Jason's older sister who prefers spending time at her boyfriend Rudy's than looking after him.
- Ned Brower as Rudy, Janie's boyfriend.
- Michelle Griffin as Shandra Duncan, Marcus' wife.
- Pat O'Brien as himself, where he interviews Marty about Big Fat Liar and covering the premiere of Whitaker and Fowl.
- Brian Turk as The Masher, a wrestler and monster truck driver. He has a young son (who has an identical resemblance to him) who is credited as "Darren", and is nicknamed "Little Mash" by his father.
Trivia[]
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