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We all need a little magic in our lives, right? A little bit of mystery…a little bit of intrigue. For many of us, that magic comes from the movies (or maybe a good book). But for Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) in writer/director Sean McGinly’s new film, The Great Buck Howard, that magic comes from an outrageous aging mentalist.
After dropping out of law school, Troy moves to LA to find some sort of interesting and glamorous job, working with some sort of celebrity. And that’s how he finds The Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a cheesy magician who’s best known for his 61 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Troy takes a job as Buck’s road manager—a job that takes him to glamorous venues like the old, rundown theaters of Akron and Bakersfield and Wausau, Wisconsin, where Buck continues to wow the crowds. But although the temperamental mentalist seems completely oblivious to his own impending demise, even he realizes that he needs to fight to stay in the spotlight. So he decides to attempt his greatest feat ever—a secret effect that he’s been practicing for years.
Inspired by the popular mentalist The Amazing Kreskin (for whom McGinly once worked as a road manager), The Great Buck Howard is a charming but rather sleepy film about an aging performer who’s still living his glory days—if only in his mind. It’s an interesting character study, shown through the eyes of his loyal (but fed-up) assistant—but it could have been so much more.
The story seems to beg for either powerful drama or outrageous comedy—but The Great Buck Howard has neither. Malkovich tends to be delightfully over-the-top in most of his roles, but he’s surprisingly subdued this time around—perhaps because he wasn’t given much to work with. Aside from Howard’s energetic, arm-pumping handshake, there’s nothing especially eccentric about him. Yes, he’s a bit of a diva, and he often verbally abuses his assistant for the most insignificant things—but you could probably say the same thing about half of the performers out there.
And it’s not just Malkovich, either. With such a star-studded cast—including Steve Zahn and Emily Blunt (as well as with an appearance by Hanks’s dad, Tom)—The Great Buck Howard could have been a larger-than-life film, filled with memorable performances and brilliant comedy. It could have been (dare I say it?) magical. Instead, it seems to plod along, telling the story with little flair.
So while the characters do have their charms—and the story does have a rabbit or two in its hat—it all falls a bit flat. And, as a result, The Great Buck Howard is a fairly enjoyable film, but it isn’t quite as great as I’d hoped it would be.
