I've noticed that you don't see much of comedy duo Mitchell and Webb any more. Oh, you see their component parts all the time - David Mitchell has a column in the Guardian, while Robert Webb's voiceovers for the Great Movie Mistakes series seem to be the only thing BBC3 ever shows. As far as I can tell, though, they're not working together any more.
In the mid-noughties, however, they were everywhere - on TV doing their sketch shows, on the radio, on TV again with the sitcom Peep Show, on TV yet again advertising Apple products... you get the picture. Not unnaturally, at the height of their fame, it was decided that they should have a crack at a movie.
The result was Magicians, a short, simple story about a pair of feuding illusionists. The critics weren't keen, and as far as I can tell, neither was anybody else. I still find myself wondering sometimes, though, whether I didn't watch a completely different film to everybody else who seems to have reviewed this one. I first saw it at the cinema, then on DVD, repeatedly, as it became one of my favourite comfort blanket movies, and I honestly can't work out where all the rage is coming from.
Our protagonists are Harry Kane (David Mitchell) and Karl Allen (Robert Webb), friends since childhood, who built up a successful career as stage magicians aided and abetted by their assistant Carol. The prologue shows this in a series of photographs, detailing Harry's marriage to Carol before cutting to Harry discovering her in an act of infidelity with Karl. Shortly afterwards, an equipment failure leads to Carol's untimely demise; the anger and guilt drive Harry and Karl to split their act in the most acrimonious way possible. Years on, however, the lure of fame, fortune and a healthy paycheck brings the pair back together as they return to the competitive magic scene.
The good
I love stage magic, and I have done since I was a kid. Most especially, however, I love movies about stage magic - anything, in fact, that promises a tantalising glimpse into a closed world, no matter how spurious that promise might be. It's natural, therefore, that I was going to be favourably inclined towards Magicians, and that I wouldn't be influenced by bad reviews even from critics I normally trust. I'm glad I saw it that first time, and I've felt that same gladness every time I've seen it since.Visually, it's nothing special; this one's definitely about the plot and the characters rather than the flash. On the other hand, it's certainly not offensive to the eye; in fact, it's as affectionate towards its location shots as it is towards its characters. As a native Brit, it's lovely to watch a film that recognisably looks like home.
Performances are uniformly charming, aided by a script that never descends into cliche. Everybody has a story to tell, and everybody gets a shot at redemption - even if not everybody chooses to take it. Steve Edge, for instance, is horrifying as unrepentant slimeball Tony White, and his scenes with his estranged son hurt in the best possible way.
Above and beyond all this, however, this is a film in which the audience needs no prior knowledge of British politics to enjoy Peter Capaldi saying fuck. It is a film in which he says fuck often, and with feeling. Moreover, he always says fuck in an easily understandable context; frequently, that context is as simple as his character being an arrogant, irascible jerk. Does mankind really know of any higher pleasure than this?
The bad
Needs more Capaldi, but then, so does pretty much everything else on the face of this benighted planet.From what I've read, some people were offended by the sweary bits, but they can.... yeah, you know the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment