Upon returning home from a sun-drenched tropical getaway, Regina Lambert's (Newton) life is turned upside down by the discovery of a ransacked, empty apartment, a missing husband and a gang of menacing thugs pursuing her every move around the streets of Paris. But when a mysterious, charismatic American stranger (Wahlberg) keeps turning up on her doorstep, offering romance and clues, she embarks on a search to find the truth, elude the pursuers and solve the mystery.

Demme's "re-imagining" of Stanley Donen's classic star vehicle Charade, though intermittently glossy, likable and fun, never really takes off or goes anywhere interesting, and ends up feeling more like a bunch of too talented people who decided to get together for a fun European vacation, and ended up filming the results. Their spirit only intermittently connects with the audience, and The Truth About Charlie ends up oddly unengaging.

To start with, beautiful Newton, often brilliant (Besieged, Beloved) always at least interesting even in bad vehicles (Mission Impossible II), walks through the film without much more than a modicum of charm of style to her performance. To make matters worse, there's no chemistry between Newton and Wahlberg. I can see Newton trying, reaching for something, but as lazy as her performance is, Wahlberg's isn't up to par either. He's miscast as the Cary Grant character, and has none of the dazzle, panache or charisma to pull it off. Wahlberg is always best at playing beaten-down scruffy types, and I hate to say it, but there's not a debonair whim about him, and the film is sorely the worse for it.

But The Truth About Charlie isn't capsized by Newton's lack of direction or the wan chemistry between her and Wahlberg. Demme's greatest fault here is that, while what's on the screen is competent enough and certainly watchable, is ultimately tepid and uninspired, lacking in style or shape.

The film doesn't really work on any of its narrative levels. As a mystery, it lacks urgency and shape. As a love story, it's dead on arrival, and the obligatory romantic attraction makes little sense given the extreme prevalence of mistrust and deception to which Regina finds herself a party. As a police thriller, it's routine and doesn't have much edge.

Demme has spoken of his love for French culture and the French New Wave Cinema, and he peppers his film with cultural references that play like a love letter to the French, complete with cameos that include singer Charles Aznavour and filmmaker Agnes Varda. But they don't add up to much, just wink-wink moments in a forgettable film.

Newton's tentative performance is no doubt due to Demme's hands off style of working with her. In a production anecdote, she told the screening audience that the idea of stepping into Audrey Hepburn's shoes was more than a little daunting (look what happened to the capable Julia Ormond in Sydney Pollack's Sabrina), and that she communicated this to Demme in pre-production. His instructions for her character were, "Thandie, just be yourself in the role." Well, I've met Thandie Newton, and I can say that she's charming, elegant, radiates good will and warmth. She's even magnetic. But the Thandie Newton "self" that appears in this film is blurry, unfocused and maybe a little too "normal" to be interesting.

Though The Truth About Charlie doesn't really work, there are a few merits worth mentioning: Newton's beauty, a giddy tango sequence and a great little performance by a Christine Boisson as a French detective, given little to do yet managing to steal the film's thunder every time she's onscreen. She's funny, insinuating, intelligent and overtly sexual is ways the two leads can't even approach. If only Demme had scrapped the other two and made a film about her, then we might have really had something. Also wasted in the cast are Lisa Gay Hamilton as a member of the renegade thugs, and Tim Robbins as, well, a campy Tim Robbins.

The Truth About Charlie should quickly fade into obscurity and drop off the resumes of Demme, Newton and Wahlberg. They've all been better just about everywhere else, and no doubt will again.