20 Great Movie Remakes With One Miscast Role

The 1990s was a transition period for Arnold Schwarzenegger, moving from a slew of 18-rated action movies into more accessible fare aimed at a wider audience. Enter, Twins, Last Action Hero, Kindergarten Cop, and, of course, True Lies.

Based on a French comedy actioner made just three years earlier, La Totale!, True Lies has Arnie in post as Harry Tasker, a homely computer hardware salesman - except he’s not! He’s actually a US counterterrorism operative away from home on dangerous missions without his family ever knowing otherwise. That is, until his two worlds collide when terrorist Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) comes gunning for his family.

But Schwarzenegger can’t play both parts, not really. The duplicity of his supposed day job, nerd cred, and family man persona only really works if we can’t imagine him wielding rocket launchers and pounding faces into mush (think of Bob Odenkirk in Nobody). He’s great in the action sequences, and the plot carries him along nicely without having to really give it a thought. But was Arnold the best man for the job? Absolutely not.

That said, True Lives is great fun in spite of its lead not fitting the part, primarily because of the absurdity of it all. We can easily sink into the film if we imagine he was miscast on purpose, and his poor fit is just part of the humour.