Movie Details
| Title: | The Magician | |
| Director: | Scott Ryan | |
| Year: | 2005 | |
| Genre: | Mockumentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.16.26 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.16.26 | Internet | This is an independent Aussie film about a hitman filmed mockumentary style in the vein of Man Bites Dog. Where it differs is that this guy is more of a friendly sort outside the whole killing people bit so there's less depravity and the worldview is much less dark. It's very rough around the edges and has that early digital video look and if I'd seen this back when it released I wouldn't have thought much of it. But then like 13 years later there was a show on FX called Mr. Inbetween that I recently saw and thought was fantastic and this is like the precursor to that show so I watched this out of curiosity but really what I want to talk about is the show. The guy who made this movie, Scott Ryan, wrote and starred in the show with Nash Edgerton (who's been a stunt guy, doing stunts in the Matrix films and doubling Ewan Macgregor as Obi Wan in the prequel trilogy along with a ton of other work; also he's Joel's brother) directing every episode, so it's really a two-person creative team behind this show and it really shows because all 3 seasons hit such a consistent tone it's pretty remarkable. If you accept that this main character is a total badass hitman with a heart of gold trope and get over that it's the guy playing the badass that's writing himself as a badass, the show presents this charismatic mix of naturalistic down to earth moments and relationships interspersed with realistic action and violence. I actually have to credit fuckin youtube shorts with turning me onto this show. While caught in several doom-scrolls it kept showing me random clips of this bald Australian guy and I'm like what is this show? And after like 20 clips I finally looked it up and decided to watch the whole thing because each clip had a certain something that really interested me. Ryan's performance is really good as a... he's not a psychopath but he has no problem killing people so I don't know what you call that. Anyway, he's totally believable, as is the guy who plays his brother and the dude who plays Gaz the buddy slash comedic relief. Really the only guy I recognized in the show is Damon Herriman who played Dewey Crowe in Justified and Charlie Manson in Mindhunter and Tarantino's movie. Here he's the criminal boss strip club owner guy who employs the multi-titular character. The poster for the movie says he's called The Magician because he makes people disappear. I have to admit I don't know what the hell Mr. Inbetween means. Maybe he lives in between professional killing and being a normal person? or he's the middle man where the rubber hits the road since he's a hired killer? In any case, the show's really great. I had conflicting feelings about the intent of the show since you're basically rooting for the killer the whole time and on his side since he's so sympathetic with his daughter and friends and brother, but all that aside it's an incredibly watchable show. This movie on the other hand I would only recommend to those like me that watched the show and wanted more. It's a really odd and rare thing that this guy Scott Ryan pops up with three seasons of this show that he writes and produces and stars in and the only other thing that he's done is this movie where he's playing the same character. I watched several interviews where he said he basically gave up on making movies for a while and credits Edgerton with persevering and getting the show going, but after three seasons they chose to end it and he hasn't popped back up in the five years since then. It could be that he's basically playing himself? I doubt he kills people but part of me does wonder how much "research" into criminal activity he did for the role... I'm sure I'm completely off base and he's just a really good actor to make me thing that, but it still holds some mystery for me for sure. Somewhere in the third season he's watching Chopper on TV. It seems Chopper the guy is a pretty big inspiration for this character. It certainly fits right in with other Aussie crime movies that I've seen. Really can't say enough good things about it. The movie's like a rough draft for the show, like the Bottle Rocket short or something like that. |
