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F/X **½/**** Image C+ Sound B- starring Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Diane Venora, Cliff DeYoung screenplay by Robert T. Megginson & Gregory Fleeman directed by Robert Mandel
by Bill ChambersF/X is only 14 years old, and yet it seems to be in a forgotten language like those modern-dress Shakespeare adaptations. I'm risking hyperbole here because practical effects are a dying art in the face of CGI. Today's motion-picture illusionist is primarily a computer animator, a trade that just doesn't lend itself to the sort of ingenuity the movie celebrates. The Tom Savinis of this world are rapidly becoming an endangered species.
In F/X, make-up effects maven Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is hired to fake the public assassination of a mob informant (Jerry Orbach) on behalf of the Witness Protection Program. All goes well until after the stunt is executed, at which point Rollie–the man who knew too much–is considered a liability and targeted for extermination by the very people who hired him. When snipers kill Rollie's girlfriend (Diane Venora), burnout police lieutenant Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) connects it all back to the informant, who's been in his sights for years. Soon enough, Leo is suspended for getting too close to the truth and working the case off the reservation; the film has parallel rogue protagonists in Leo and Rollie, unwitting allies who don't meet until the final moments, having followed a trail of breadcrumbs to the same source. It's kind of a buddy-cop movie split in two.
F/X was well-reviewed and amassed a real cult following–partly, one suspects, because the hero is such a romantic melding of MacGyver and Houdini. But I always wished Rollie were as shrewd as he is resourceful. I would've advised that the fugitive Rollie not drive around the city in a van featuring his company logo emblazoned on its side, for instance. It also takes him an inordinately long time to clue in that he can't trust the authorities. Still, it's a thrill to watch a character get the best of a veritable militia utilizing his unique skillset; the movie never forgets its gimmick, and Australian everyman Brown seems so comfortable around the tools of Rollie's trade–I've also bought him as a bartender and a masseuse–that he inspires more confidence than suspension of disbelief.
Arriving five years later, Richard Franklin's FX2 (the dividing backslash mysteriously dropped) is more of the same, but sillier and notably cheaper-looking; it plays not unlike the pilot for a prospective TV series, which would eventually hit airwaves in 1996. Rollie, now a hi-tech toy maker (the writing was on the wall even in 1991), controversially decides to help out the cops in a sleight-of-hand again ("Why not?" he shrugs in a genuinely funny, sequel's-gotta-happen-somehow moment); is double-crossed again; and makes many questionable manoeuvres again. He has learned a few lessons, however: whisk the girlfriend (Rachel Ticotin) off to a safe place, and hook up with Leo at the beginning of the picture, before the shit even hits the fan. (Fun fact: the thriller Rollie was working on at the beginning of F/X is playing on a TV in FX2.)
The best-remembered aspect of FX2 is "Bluey," a life-size, remote-control clown puppet that comes in handy when Rollie's attacking and being attacked by henchmen. I enjoyed watching Bluey kick ass, though his inclusion feels a little childish, as do the majority of Rollie's booby traps (e.g., an exploding can of beans). Because the R-rated original was a smash on video, the filmmakers were pressured to deliver a PG-13 follow-up. So this time around, much of Rollie's handiwork was charted with a younger, perhaps juvenile demographic in mind.
That said, a certain callousness remains (this time, it's Leo's love interest who becomes the Janet Leigh casualty). For what it's worth, the casting in both films is better than is typically the case for these B-grade, high-concept diversions. Brown remains a charming and ruggedly handsome lead, while Dennehy was born to play cops; not even ten years later, actors with their distressed appeal are all but absent from the screen. And Jossie DuGuzman, a terrible actress, is nonetheless appealingly human in her ghastly specs and hair as doomed computer expert Velez.
THE DVD MGM has released F/X and FX2 to DVD in transfers that likely date back to the ones prepared for LaserDisc. This is worse for the former than it is for the latter. Non-anamorphically letterboxed at 1.85:1, F/X sports decent saturation and contrast but is lousy with noise and compression artifacts. While FX2's image falls victim to occasional shimmer and aliasing, its brighter palette makes for a smoother transition to the small screen. Still, colours skew towards orange in FX2, as was the case for many early-Nineties Orion transfers. Each film is presented in Dolby Surround, and rear-channel activity is almost nil for F/X. FX2 isn't exactly enveloping, either, although it's comparatively bassier and features a variety of showy stereophonic pans.
Extras include full-frame versions of the movies on side "B" of a measly DVD-10 as well as their respective original theatrical trailers. Curiously, only FX2 comes with a collectible booklet. Unsolicited marketing opinion alert: I think, given that there is no F/X 3 on the horizon, that MGM should've released F/X and FX2 on the same disc as a double-feature, since FX2 will probably end up collecting dust on store shelves.
