Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

poetcomic1 Terri Garr's performance is perhaps her very best. It taps into her effervescent goofiness and subverts it into a rich and complex cover for evil. At the end she looks like 'Mother Russia' in her loose prison clothes, hair hanging limp, face ravaged by a life of deceit, lies and betrayal.I find it rather shocking that other reviewers blame the British security officers rather than the deadly dangerous atomic spies they are hunting down for 'deceiving' the middle class family. Ellen Burstyn gives a 100% to the role but when doesn't she? Terri is the real acting surprise. Her character doesn't 'tell' lies' she IS a living lie. Terrifying.Interesting to note that this was based on a true story AND was a fairly successful Broadway play as well.

jimakros As few people pointed out,this is based on the true story of Morris and Lona Cohen,an American couple who were spying for the KGB and lived in England when they were arrested in 1961.This TV movie made from the play of the same name,is about an also real couple,Bill and Ruth Search,and their daughter,who lived across the Cohens,and whose house was used by MI5 to watch on the Cohens. In real life,the Searches and the Cohens of course knew each other and were friends but there is no evidence that they were especially close as this movie shows them to be.This story over-dramatizes this situation,making Ruth Search incredibly attached to Lona Cohen,to the point that when the latter is arrested,it breaks Ruth's heart.Even as a play however,is hard to believe,because we are told the two women have been friends for about 3 years,they were not lifelong friends,and Ruth Search(Burstyn) in the play and movie still has her husband and daughter to care for,she is not a lonely woman.The shock of the true identity of their neighbors is true enough but the complete breakdown of Ruth is not justified in any way.Still,the movie is interesting ,in the fact that it is based in the unusual story of the Cohen couple who after being imprisoned 8 years for spying,returned to Russia.

whpratt1 This is an excellent film because of great acting skills by all of the actors and especially Ellen Burstyn,(Barbara Jackson),"Down in the Valley",'05 and Teri Garr,(Helen Schaefer),"The Sky Is Falling",'2000. The story takes place in London, England at the home of Barbara Jackson, who lives across the street from her good friend, Helen Schaefer. Helen plays an attractive blonde gal who is full of pep and very outgoing in her personality and tries to liven up her good friend Barbara, by getting her to purchase a sexy nightie for her self and husband and befriends her daughter. One day a complete stranger comes to the home of the Jackson's and disrupts their entire household and causes problems you will never believe could actually happen and I am sure it did in real life situations. I knew that this film was well produced and directed and the acting was outstanding, simply because it made me so Mad at people who would actually let this happen to their family and life without telling them WHERE TO GET OFF ! Enjoy

writerasfilmcritic "Pack of Lies" is a very interesting drama which is aptly named. MI5 agents, led by Alan Bates as "Stuart," skillfully manipulate a well-intentioned British family into believing that they are merely police on a routine investigation who need to use their home in the London suburbs "just for the weekend" in order to surveil a suspect who has been tracked into their neighborhood. As it becomes clearer what is really going on and what is at stake, the agents practically take over the house, the British couple are encouraged to lie to their teenage daughter about the unseemly details they have learned, and then the husband must lie to his increasingly distraught wife in order to spare her the trauma of the final ugly truth. Everyone must deceive the family's friendly neighbors by pretending that nothing at all is amiss, for it turns out that they are Soviet spies who have been lying their heads off to maintain their cover. In the end, as British agents close in for the inevitable arrest, Ellen Burstyn, as Barb, is subsumed in guilt, completely torn between her loyalty to her best friend, Helen (Teri Garr), while at the same time feeling totally gullible and cruelly betrayed by her. This is a great TV movie with excellent performances all around, but especially from Alan Bates, Teri Garr, and Ellen Burstyn. In fact, the latter is so convincing in her interpretation that at certain key moments it almost defies description.The interesting thing, of course, is that this effective movie is based on a true story, as was pointed out in another's comments. "Helen and Peter" seemed so affable and caring but were in fact part of the infamous atomic spy ring that gathered American nuclear secrets after WWII and transmitted them to the Soviets. They escaped the US when the Rosenbergs and others were arrested, only to surface in London some time later under assumed names.