BY TODD GARBARINI
Director
Robert Mandel's F/X is one of the
most entertaining and compulsively watchable thrillers of 1986. I originally
caught up with it on VHS and, while I was impressed with the film, the ending I
found to be both hokey and frustrating, mostly due to the completely
out-of-place 1982 song “Just an Illusion†by Imagination that plays over the
end credits. I felt that it undermined all that preceded it. However, like William Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA (1985) and David
Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), F/X is a film that would only grow on me
after subsequent repeated viewings. I learned to forgive the inclusion of this
song as the final minutes should really be viewed as a visual pun on the film’s
overall theme, which begs the question “What is real and what is fiction?â€
F/X, which was released on Friday, February 7, 1986, is also
sometimes known as Murder by Illusion. It gives us Rollie Tyler (played expertly by
Bryan Brown) as a master special-effects movie wizard who is approached by a
group of people who claim to be from the Justice Department and have a unique
offer for him. They want him to stage a fake assassination of Nicholas De Franco
(Jerry Orbach), a reputed mobster who is about to testify against his friends
just before entering the Witness Relocation Program. Naturally, they want to
give the impression that De Franco is dead before the real-life mobsters can
get to him first as a contract has been put out on his life. Rollie, whose
apartment is adorned with posters of Zombie
(1979) and Fade to Black (1980) and effects
prosthetics made for movies, is initially very hesitant, and when he refuses
their offer he is told that they will now go back to his biggest competitor to
do the job. He then asks them to give him 24 hours to think about it, and the
carrot at the end of the proverbial stick proves to be a very strong catalyst.
After setting up mobster De Franco, the fake assassination, which is similar to Michael Corleone’s hit on Virgil Sollazzo and Captain McCluskey, goes off
without a hitch (the notion of the Witness Protection Program, as it is known
today, is now common thanks to Goodfellas
(1990) and The Sopranos (1999-2007),
but back then it was virtually unheard of). Unfortunately for Rollie, the truth
about what he has just done is about to be revealed to him when he is suddenly
thrust into an unbelievable chain of events that he himself, despite his
stature in an industry that prides itself on make-believe, probably never could
have imagined.
While
the film may not seem very original nearly 30 years later, it still holds up
remarkably well for the material. One of the things that truly bolsters this
film from its intended origins (a low-budget made-for-TV movie) is the casting.
Bryan Brown is terrific as the special-effects man and Diane Venora, an actress
who is seen far too little these days, is equally likable as his
actress/girlfriend. Mason Adams, best known to American audiences in his role
as the managing editor in TV’s Lou Grant,
shines as the mastermind behind De Franco’s exodus from society. The real
fireworks begin however, with the introduction of Leo McCarthy (the phenomenal
Brian Dennehy), a police lieutenant who, along with his partner Mickey (Joe
Grifasi), is assigned to the case. The banter between Leo and Mickey takes on a
Mutt and Jeff dynamic as they try to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Czechoslovakian cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, who sadly passed away in March
of 2015, does a beautiful job lensing F/X,
taking what quite possibly could have been just an average “B†thriller and
elevating it to a highly cinematic “A†feature. Also on board is the late veteran character actor Trey Wilson from Raising Arizona (1987) and Miss Firecracker (1989). Roscoe Orman, who played Gordon on Sesame Street, appears here in the only
role that I have seen him in outside of that beloved children’s show.
F/X was filmed during the summer of 1985 and is a bit jarring
to watch now due to the complete and total absence of cell phones, computer
equipment that looks like it stems from the Stone Age and all of the Titanic-sized
American vehicles on the road. One scene shows a car plow through a series of
posters advertising Rambo: First Blood
Part II, which drives home (no pun intended of course) the make-believe
nature of moviemaking with its tongue-in-cheek in-joke and is also a nice nod
to Brian Dennehy, who fought Rambo in that series’ first film. I cannot say enough about Bill Conti’s score
which is a fully realized work, complete with an orchestra, the sort that you
don’t really see much of in movies nowadays, and it fits this movie like a
glove. From the film’s opening over the
Orion Pictures logo to the love theme to the cat-and-mouse chase through
Central Park to the spectacular car chase through Manhattan, this score can
easily be enjoyed on its own merits.
The
transfer of this film on Blu-ray is a considerable improvement over the
original VHS tape which was murky and plagued by issues related to the
inclusion of the Macrovision anti-copying code. The multiple laser disc releases and DVD releases were not much better,
but Kino Lorber has done an admirable job of releasing the film this time
around. There is some film gain apparent
in the darker scenes, but nothing terribly distracting. The extras on the Blu-ray consist of an
interview with director Robert Mandel (14:00) wherein he discusses the pleasure
he had in making the film and how he didn’t feel qualified to helm the job due
to his lack of experience directing thrillers or action films, though producer
Dodi Fayed, who died in 1997 in the car crash that killed Princess Diana, felt
otherwise. On the basis of Mr. Mandel’s
1983 drama Independence
Day,
which to this day has yet to be released by the Warner Archive, he was hired to
make the characters human and real. The
director comes across as affable and appreciative of those who contributed to
making the film.
The Making of F/X is a featurette that also runs 14
minutes in length and was shot during the film’s production, presumably to drum
up interest at the 1985 San Diego Comic Con , as actor Brown addresses the
camera and makes reference to a “conventionâ€. Behind-the-scenes documentaries and fan conventions abound today, but 30
years ago there was very little information outside of Fangoria magazine that could illustrate how special make-up effects
were actually accomplished. Carl
Fullerton, the special makeup supervisor who now has over 70 film credits to
his name, provides his expertise to convince the audience of Rollie’s
role. John Stears, who won Oscars for
his work on Thunderball (1965) and Star Wars (1977), talks about the four
instances that he himself was approached by reputed mobsters to do what Rollie
does in the film. Apparently, these were
four offers that he did refuse (sorry, couldn’t resist). Terry Rawlings, a veteran of some of Ridley
Scott’s best work, is also on board as the editor and keeps the film moving
along at a brisk pace with great match shots and visual and aural segues.
Rounding
out the extras are theatrical trailers for F/X
and the sequel from 1991, F/X 2
which, to me, looks like a Hollywood production, and is a film that I have not
yet seen.
Diane
Venora utters a prophetic line at the beginning of the film: “Nobody cares
about making movies about people anymore. All they care about are special
effects.†That seems to be true of
movies more now than ever before.
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