...a capable, old-style action film with a good cast and an assortment of sly plot surprises.
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
"F/X" is a low-key thriller that makes no sense if you think about it too much. At the same time, it manages to engage the pulse, if not the brain. The DVD's picture and sound quality are disappointing, considering the movie's fairly recent vintage, but fortunately the plot holds up well enough to make us forget. In fact, the movie did so surprisingly well at the box office, there was a sequel about five years later. The sequel is nothing to talk about, but you'll have a good time with the original.
Bryon Brown ("Cocktail," "Gorillas in the Mist") stars as Rollie Tyler, a movie special-effects expert living and working in New York City. Thus the title, "F/X," standing for (special) effects and also a dead giveaway of the movie's contents. Namely, things are never quite what they appear to be. After an imaginative opening sequence, we find Rollie on a movie set being approached by a Justice Department agent (Cliff DeYoung) to do a special job. The government wants Rollie to stage the fake assassination of a mob boss for them. The object of the phony hit is Nick DeFranco (Jerry Orbach), a high-ranking gangster in the witness protection program who is about to testify against his old pals. The government wants the Mafia to think he's dead so they won't try to kill him before he spills the beans in court. But the operation goes wrong and DeFranco winds up actually dead, with everybody thinking Rollie is the killer! Poor Rollie; he's like Cary Grant in "North By Northwest," with the police, the government, and the gangsters all out to get him.
As expected from a film about a special effects man, the story takes a lot of twists and turns, and everything we see is not necessarily as it may be. As Rollie says, first he's hired to do a pretend murder, then there's a real murder, and then the people who hired him try to murder him. So he fights back the only way he knows how--by using special effects. Although the whole film is basically an extended chase, director Robert Mandel ("Perfect Witness," "School Ties," "The Substitute") makes it varied enough to sustain our interest; and the last thirty minutes or so are especially exciting.
Yet this isn't a film big on actual special effects as we've come to know them today. Filmed in 1985 and released in 1986, "F/X" predates modern digital technology and relies instead on good old-fashioned makeup, costumes, and minor pyrotechnics. Rollie's forte is deceiving the eye and ear, which he does in a number of surprisingly inventive and believable ways. Well, OK, maybe not always believable; let's just say it appears credible if one doesn't reflect on it further.
Anyway, it's the film's plot shifts and characterizations that make it worthwhile. Obviously, I can't say much about the plot turns or I'd spoil things, so let me describe a few of the major characters, starting with Bryon Brown. He's not your typical young-hunk hero. He's rather average of build, handsome and mature, with more machismo than two or three Hollywood heartthrobs put together. Yes, he has a requisite fight scene, but most of the time he's using his head.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]10985[/release]