Friday
20Mar2009
Movie Review - 'The Great Buck Howard'
Friday, March 20, 2009 at 2:06AM | The Great Buck Howard
Starring Colin Hanks, John Malkovich, and Emily Blunt  |
There are times when your interest in a movie is raised just by part of the central premise. A couple of years ago, I was inrigued to see a movie called Colour Me Kubrick because John Malkovich was playing a con man passing himself off as reclusive director Stanley Kubrick. He'd say he was the man behind 2001 and Dr. Strangelove and tell bar patrons he needed more money to make his next film, and leave check in hand.
That was based on a true story, actually, but the film didn't improve on it.
This year, my interest in The Great Buck Howard was heightened by the notion of Malkovich playing a washed-up mentalist trying to mount a pop culture comeback. The character is based on The Amazing Kreskin, who marveled television audiences with his feats of the hard to explain.
Writer-director Sean McGinly praises Kreskin in the closing credits for his film; that's not a surprise, considering this movie is a fictionalized account of McGinley's time working with Kreskin, which is why the real story here is not about the mentalist but rather the man who discovered himself through working with the downtrodden cabaret showman.
Troy Gabel (Colin Hanks) is a law school dropout, and without much direction in his life, takes a job as a road manager for Buck Howard, a performer he's never heard of. Howard is, as you might expect, an unusual cat. He's well-tailored but cheap, typically mild-mannered but likely to explode at any moment for any reason, and has a sexuality that's hard to gauge.
"Is he gay," asks public relations maven Valerie Brennan (Emily Blunt). Troy doesn't know the answer. Years later, TV director Jonathan Finerman (Griffin Dunne) asks Troy, "Is he gay?"
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