Death Defying Acts (2008) Movie Review

How can a film with such an interesting character as the icon Harry Houdini be such a drag into mere boredom? This is the end result of Death Defying Acts, which has been on the shelf for awhile and is now being dumped by The Weinstein Company into a limited release.

Not even the film’s terrific cast, which includes the always outstanding Guy Pearce in the role as Houdini can help this film out with its fictionalized account of an alleged affair that the magician had during his 1926 tour of Britain.

Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) is the top of his game as the incredible German born-American magician that never stops making amazing audiences. As he arrives in Edinburgh, Scotland on his tour, he offers up a reward of $10,000 to any person who can tell him his mother’s last words. After Houdini and his loyal assistant Sugarman (Timothy Spall) sit through a headache full of auditioning fakes, in walks the beautiful psychic Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her curious daughter Benji (Atonement’s Saoirse Ronan) with the confidence that they can answer Houdini’s proposal. Mary and her daughter are in fact con artists that put on a very slick psychic act in the city to get money for survival. Curious with their nature, but also feeling a sign of truth, Houdini believes that Mary is the pick for this agenda much against Sugarman’s wishes. As Benji becomes more and more enthralled with Houdini, he and Mary actually engage in a tender affair, much to her embarrassment due to her class status to his riches, even though he came from nothing as a child. As the affair continues the film builds up to its final act of whether Mary and Benji can win the reward whether by lying or trusting Houdini and themselves.

The film has a strong texture and the time period is beautifully captured by its director Gillian Armstrong. However, the director moves the film at a snail’s pace despite its nice transitions. Silly sequences having Houdini visualizing his mother as sort of angel swimming about continuously overdue the character’s psychic, when the acting by Guy Pearce commands more attention to his anxiety that these sequences. The accounts of Houdini having an affair in Scotland have their liberties taken with them by Armstrong and writers Tony Grisoni and Brian Ward. This love story could have been told as an entire fictionalization, but it is evident the writers included Houdini for the interest of the character, but though he is given depth, his magician colors are hardly divulge to the audience.

Pearce does not look like Houdini, but he engulfs himself in the role and is the best part of this film. Catherine Zeta-Jones is not across the board consistent with her Scottish accent, but her emotional moments in the film are solid. Young Saoirse Ronan, who was nominated for her work last year in Atonement, shines and holds her own with Pearce as the curious daughter of Mary, Benji. This young actress is immensely talented and there is a lot of expectation from her next role in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Character actor Timothy Spall is also solid in her supporting role as Houdini’s loyal assistant Sugarman.

Death Defying Acts is a love story centered on an interesting true-life character in Harry Houdini. It is just unfortunate that the film does not divulge its self into the interesting side of Houdini rather than his psychological parental issues and enduring love urges. The film also includes some silly sequences for a film of its stature in terms of time setting and production design, and it also moves very slowly despite being a pretty short film.