Death Defying Acts
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DVD details
Actor: Anthony O'Donnell, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Guy Pearce, Ralph Riach, Timothy SpallBrand: Wellspring Media INC
Cinematographer: Haris Zambarloukos
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-28
Audience Rating: Unrated
Model: 81551
Studio: Weinstein Company
Product features:
- During Harry Houdini's tour of Britain in 1926, the master escapologist enters into a passionate affair with a Scottish psychic. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR Age: 796019815512 UPC: 796019815512 Manufacturer No: 81551
DVD Reviews of Death Defying Acts
DVD Review: Unconvincing chemistry and lacklustre plot let this movie down
Summary: 2 Stars
"Death Defying Acts" is not a movie biography of Harry Houdini. Instead, it takes a small thread and weaves it into a full-length movie. The story here centers around mother-daughter con artists Mary McGarvie [Catherine Zeta-Jones] and her street smart daughter Benji [Saoirse Ronan whose claim to fame is from the movie Atonement]who barely eke out a living in Edinburgh, Scotland. They put on shows at the local theatre, where they play exotic characters that are able to foretell the future [having done research beforehand on the history of someone in the audience, usually by pickpocketing an object belonging to said person]. When the pair find out that Harry Houdini [Guy Pearce] is coming to Edinburgh and is paying out a 10,000 reward to anyone who can 'divine' his mother's last words written in a letter only known to him, they decide to con him. I'm not sure if the romance part was based on actual events but Houdini was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any psychic who could successfully prove paranormal abilities. The prize however was never collected in real life.
Well, things get complicated when Mary and Houdini get emotionally drawn to each other and the rest of the story deals with the consequences as well as Benji's attempts to get her mother focused on the main prize.
Frankly, I was rather disappointed with this movie - I felt that the mother-daughter chemistry was far from credible, as the pair simply didn't click, and Zeta-Jones even at her 'shabbiest' seemed utterly unconvincing as a down-on-her-luck woman. Her role in this movie definitely lacked 'meatiness' in terms of substance [she dolls up well enough but that's all that she did really well here as there was no real character development]. As to the romance thread in the movie, somehow the leads here lacked chemistry as well and their romance for what's its worth came across as unconvincing.
The one character that I felt was really well-done was Timothy Spall as Houdini's manager. He knows from the beginning that MacGarvie and Benji are con artists and tries to protect Houdini from them and from Houdini himself [sensing the emotional attachment between Houdini and Mary].
The production values are decent enough - I did like the opening scene where Pearce actually performs an underwater stunt. But such outstanding and memorable scenes are few and far between.
On the whole, this is not a bad movie, neither is it a great movie - there are just too many flaws that pull it down into mediocrity. As far as recent period dramas go, I'd recommend movies like The Illusionist, The Prestige and Perfume:Story of a Murderer, for ambience, plot intrigue and thrills.
More Death Defying Acts reviews:
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Description of Death Defying Acts
DEATH DEFYING ACTS - DVD MovieDeath Defying Acts would more aptly be titled Houdini?s Whirlwind Romance as it focuses less on the famed magician?s skills and more on what kind of secret lovers he may have had. In this historical drama, ravishing con-artists, Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and daughter, Benji (Saoirse Ronan), play two sharp girls ready to take Houdini (Guy Pearce) for a ride. Set in 1920s Scotland, the plot centers on a contest Houdini hosts in Edinburgh to find a psychic medium who can channel his deceased mother. Mary, tired of pick-pocketing to stage fake magic shows, desperately wants Houdini?s $10,000 cash prize and auditions successfully for the role of (real) medium. From there, passions flare up as they negotiate how much of their magic is sheer trickery. Director Gillian Armstrong?s (Little Women) rendition of Houdini?s life depicts him as a regular joe struggling to convince his pragmatic business manager, Sugarman (Timothy Spall), that magic and science are connected. Scenes in which Houdini trains for and then tests his boundaries and skills during famous theater acts, are highly entertaining and well re-created. Scenes in which McGarvie and her daughter read characters for clues to rig their paranormal hoaxes are equally well-done, and Zeta-Jones is gorgeous as a spiritualist. But when Mary and Houdini collide, their definitions of magic turn to mush through Hollywood translation, as something semi-equivocal to faith in love. This unfortunate injection of melodrama in an otherwise smart film cancels out its better parts. Do Houdini fans really want to see him, on screen, grappling with CG angels as he floats, straitjacketed, in his sealed water tank? I doubt it. Still, Death Defying Acts stars Houdini, which automatically makes for some fun. ?Trinie Dalton
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