Big Fat Liar (2002)

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Overview

Big Fat Liar (sometimes referred to as big FAT liar) is a modern day retelling of the classic fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Written by Dan Schneider and directed by Shawn Levy, this film starred Frankie Muniz as Jason Shepard (or the Boy Who Cried Wolf), a 14-year old con artist who is renowned for his talent for stretching the truth.

By a twist of fate, he runs into Paul Giamatti as Marty Wolf who is an arrogant and egotistical Hollywood producer and is also an inveterate liar himself. Shepard greatly admires Wolf's ability to lie and accidentally leaves behind a creative writing paper titled "Big Fat Liar" in Wolf's limousine. Wolf instead decides to turn this paper into his next huge film. When Shepard realizes this, he finds to his distress that no one; not even his parents will believe him due to his record of lying.

To prove he is capable of telling the truth, Shepard and his best friend, Kaylee (Amanda Bynes) travel to Hollywood in order to have Wolf call Jason's parents and tell them the truth, but Wolf has no intention of telling the truth to anyone. Fortunately for Jason, Wolf has bullied and abused countless of people who are more than eager to get even with the arrogant producer and show him that in the end, "the truth is not overrated".

Critical Reception

Big Fat Liar received mixed reviews from critics who proclaimed that it was strictly for kids and it was filled with cliches and slapstick while others proclaimed it was energetic and witty. It received a "Rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 43% of the reviews being positive. Metacritic rated it with a 36 out of 100 which is a generally unfavorable review.

Box Office

When it opened in movie theaters on weekends, it was the #2 most grossing film and it was a mild financial success. It failed to hold onto its slot over the following week and continued to drop rapidly. It managed to gross $48,360,547 at the box office domestically and $53,970,014 worldwide with a total budget of $15 million.