Magic
2/4
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margaret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter
Rated R (probably for Violence, Language and Sexuality)
I could say the same things about "Magic" that I could say about the film's central character, a ventriloquist named Corky: intriguing, well-acted, scary...and a bit dull. The movie is ambitious, but the results are mixed.
Corky (Hopkins) is an aspiring magician. Under the tutelage of his ailing mentor, he strike out on his own, but his first appearance is a total bomb. Cut to a year later. Corky is back, and this time he has a dummy named Fats who accentuates his act with his foul mouth and dirty humor. His agent, Ben Greene (Meredith), or "Gangrene," as Corky calls him, tells him that he's going to hit the big time. But Corky refuses to undergo a medical exam demanded by the studio and flees to the Catskills to clear his head. There, he hooks up with an old crush named Peg (Ann-Margaret), who runs a b&b and is trapped in a dead marriage to Duke (Lauter). But Corky is hiding secrets that could spell doom for everyone involved.
This is a great idea for a horror movie: a ventriloquist with an unhealthy relationship to his dummy is pushed to the brink of madness. It's as if Jeff Dunham went loco. But for this to work, the characters, especially Fats, have to be well-defined. Who is Fats? Is he a manifestation of Corky's dark side? A demonic entity? Or something else? I'm not sure, and I don't think the film does either. If the movie doesn't understand who the key character is, then how can the audience know how to feel about him?
At least the performances are top notch. Anthony Hopkins is always an interesting actor, even when he's in a movie just to get paid (how else does one explain his appearance in "Transformers: The Last Knight"?). Here he plays a much different character than his more infamous lunatic alter-ego, Hannibal Lecter. Rather than a ruthless, Machiavellian psychopath, Corky is shy, insecure and gentle. But his twisted relationship with Fats throws him into a downward spiral that puts others in danger. He's quite good here. Ann-Margaret is also effective as Peg, who senses something in Corky. If he isn't anything more than a source of infatuation for her, then at least he's a way out of her dead end life. Burgees Meredith, looking very much like George Burns, is a scene-stealer as Corky's agent simply with his commanding presence and way of speaking. He's a showbiz veteran with a penetrating way of reading people. Rounding out the cast is veteran character actor Ed Lauter, who plays Duke as a flawed man but who may not be as bad as he seems.
I suppose "Magic" could be tabled as "dramatic horror," although it also makes a stab at romance (which, considering the lack of chemistry between Hopkins and Ann-Margaret, is pretty much dead on arrival). The problem is that Richard Attenborough is not a horror director. Horror movies demand less on empathy and more on savagery. The technical aspects are more important than the emotional ones. This movie is not well-paced or well-understood by its director. Clearly, his belief of sincerity over intelligence wasn't the right course of action for this film, since it resulted in a movie without a clear focus or purpose.
So it doesn't work. But there is a good idea here. It just needed a different director and a more complete idea of what it was supposed to be. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock had made it. What fun that would have been!
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margaret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter
Rated R (probably for Violence, Language and Sexuality)
I could say the same things about "Magic" that I could say about the film's central character, a ventriloquist named Corky: intriguing, well-acted, scary...and a bit dull. The movie is ambitious, but the results are mixed.
Corky (Hopkins) is an aspiring magician. Under the tutelage of his ailing mentor, he strike out on his own, but his first appearance is a total bomb. Cut to a year later. Corky is back, and this time he has a dummy named Fats who accentuates his act with his foul mouth and dirty humor. His agent, Ben Greene (Meredith), or "Gangrene," as Corky calls him, tells him that he's going to hit the big time. But Corky refuses to undergo a medical exam demanded by the studio and flees to the Catskills to clear his head. There, he hooks up with an old crush named Peg (Ann-Margaret), who runs a b&b and is trapped in a dead marriage to Duke (Lauter). But Corky is hiding secrets that could spell doom for everyone involved.
This is a great idea for a horror movie: a ventriloquist with an unhealthy relationship to his dummy is pushed to the brink of madness. It's as if Jeff Dunham went loco. But for this to work, the characters, especially Fats, have to be well-defined. Who is Fats? Is he a manifestation of Corky's dark side? A demonic entity? Or something else? I'm not sure, and I don't think the film does either. If the movie doesn't understand who the key character is, then how can the audience know how to feel about him?
At least the performances are top notch. Anthony Hopkins is always an interesting actor, even when he's in a movie just to get paid (how else does one explain his appearance in "Transformers: The Last Knight"?). Here he plays a much different character than his more infamous lunatic alter-ego, Hannibal Lecter. Rather than a ruthless, Machiavellian psychopath, Corky is shy, insecure and gentle. But his twisted relationship with Fats throws him into a downward spiral that puts others in danger. He's quite good here. Ann-Margaret is also effective as Peg, who senses something in Corky. If he isn't anything more than a source of infatuation for her, then at least he's a way out of her dead end life. Burgees Meredith, looking very much like George Burns, is a scene-stealer as Corky's agent simply with his commanding presence and way of speaking. He's a showbiz veteran with a penetrating way of reading people. Rounding out the cast is veteran character actor Ed Lauter, who plays Duke as a flawed man but who may not be as bad as he seems.
I suppose "Magic" could be tabled as "dramatic horror," although it also makes a stab at romance (which, considering the lack of chemistry between Hopkins and Ann-Margaret, is pretty much dead on arrival). The problem is that Richard Attenborough is not a horror director. Horror movies demand less on empathy and more on savagery. The technical aspects are more important than the emotional ones. This movie is not well-paced or well-understood by its director. Clearly, his belief of sincerity over intelligence wasn't the right course of action for this film, since it resulted in a movie without a clear focus or purpose.
So it doesn't work. But there is a good idea here. It just needed a different director and a more complete idea of what it was supposed to be. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock had made it. What fun that would have been!
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