ROUGH MAGIC (1995)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2002

The only criteria upon we should judge individual movie's success
is their impact on future generation of viewers, critics and film
scholars. In other words, the only way for films to succeed is to be
remembered. There are various ways to measure films being
memorable, none of them particularly objective. But few are as
effective as the example of a few years old film featuring one of
currently hottest Hollywood stars yet being almost totally obscure.
This film is ROUGH MAGIC, fantasy comedy directed by Clare
Peploe.

Plot is set in early 1950s and deals with Myra (played by Bridget
Fonda), young and beautiful magician's assistant who is about to
be married to wealthy businessman and US Senate candidate Cliff
Wyatt (played by D.W. Moffat). The tycoon actually doesn't love the
girl and wants to marry her strictly to improve his family image.
Myra's mentor (played by Kenneth Mars) knows this and doesn't
approve of marriage, which would cost him his life during the
altercation with Wyatt. Myra has photographs the incident and
runs to Mexico. Alec Ross (played by Russell Crowe) is ex-reporter
hired to track her down. In Mexico, Myra meets Doc Ansell (played
by Jim Broadbent), alcoholic doctor who wants to use Myra's
talents to get his hand on magical Maya potion. This encounter is
only the first in the long line of strange, surreal events that would
change Myra's life and lives of people around her.

One reason why Russell Crowe's performance in this film is
forgotten could be found in total lack of chemistry between him
and Bridget Fonda, otherwise more than fine actress, but unsuited
for the role of Myra. But the terrible miscasting (with the exception
of Jim Broadbent in one fine role) is just one of this film's many
problems. The most visible is bad genre mix. The filmmakers
wanted ROUGH MAGIC to be classic film noir, romantic comedy,
fantasy and politically charged drama in the same time. They could
have gotten away with it if they had marginally more coherent plot
and better-drawn characters. Here they hadn't got anything -
characters pop in and out of the film, their motivations change
without any reasons, plot has craters instead of hole. To say that
ROUGH MAGIC is confusing for the audience would be
understatement. The one thing that isn't confusing is the reason
why ROUGH MAGIC sank into obscurity.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

Review written on November 17th 2002

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society