Post by stefancrosscoe on Jul 11, 2017 13:16:53 GMT
"Nobody cares about making movies about people any more. All they care about is special effects."
Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is the best special effect wizard in the movie business and the Department Of Justice knows all about it, as they are one of his biggest admirers.
As a special request, they are hoping he might consider to do a little gig for them, which is to help create and set up a fake murder on one of the most notorious mobsters in the country. But what they don't tell him is that when the job is done, there's no paycheck or gratitude waiting, instead there is only a bullet with his name on it.
Brain over brawn, F/X: Murder By Illusion is one of the finest suspense action/thrillers of the mid 80s, and still stands out in a time were the macho over-the-top manly "one-man hero" with big muscles, even bigger guns was dominating the screens, and here you have a guy who comes of as a cross between, Paul Kersey (Death Wish), James Bond and MacGyver. And speaking about MacGyver, the main character Rollie has a lot in common with the famous TV character, as he is also not really much of a gun loving type of hero, but instead more of the impulsive, creative kind of guy, who rely more on the enviroment or surroundings around him, and sees it as an challenge to help use what he can get out of it to overthrow or take his enemies by a real surprise.
Bryan Brown might not come off as the ordinary or typical action kind of a hero, at least not in the mid 80s, but that is what I enjoyed about the film, as one of the best fight sequences in it, show that even though Brown is towering in size/shape over one of his enemies, it doesn't always mean you are going to win a fight just because you are larger/bigger than you opponent. Instead we see Rollie Tyler ends up in a desperate fight for his life, using everything he can get his hands on to try and overpower his enemy. It kind of reminded me of some of the older James Bond movies with Sean Connery using chairs, tables even vases to try and put down the bad guys.
I wish more movies would go back to this kind of action scenes nowdays, instead of just having the typical "perfect" ice cold could-not-care-less killing machine, who almost looks bored out of his mind when showing off his fantastic fighting skills, while you already know before the fight has began, that it will end just like all the other. The hero dominates and is never in any danger at all. Easily knocking down 8-10 grown men, within a few seconds.
Anyway, back to the movie.
Brian Dennehy, as I think I already mentioned in the thread for Best Seller (1987) is once again used well as the grumpy but still very likeable sidekick and even though the two main characters don't share much time together, Dennehy always delivers the goods, and of course a couple of years later, a sequel came out, and while not as good as the first one, it still was fairly entertaing and they get more screen time together, but I felt it lacks the "surprise" momements that this film had and there was maybe a bit too much comedy than suspense thrown in.
Jerry Orbach does a fine job as the sleazy mobster and the lovely Diane Venora has a smaller part here too. Look out for a young Tom Noonan, who the same year would get a much bigger party in Michael Mann's crime classic, Manhunter.
Josie de Guzman plays the helpul and sweet cop, who helps Leo (Dennehy) with the police information and I think she also had a small part in the sequel too.
All in all, this is a solid action/suspense film that manages to come with several good surprises along the way, and that features good performances by the leading parts.