The Magician

We’ve not had a film review on here for a while, so here’s one now. I saw The Magician over the weekend. It’s an Australian mock-documentary about Ray Shoesmith, an amoral hitman.

For a quick pitch you could call it Man Bites Dog meets Chopper. Iain, our resident cartoonist, hates the Man Bites Dog comparison cos he hated MBD, but loved The Magician. The comparison begins and ends with the fact both films are documentaries of hitmen. The Magician has much more in common with Chopper in the matter of fact way it handles violence and the protagonist’s attitude to it.

Scott Ryan, wrote, directed and takes the lead role in which he’s never less than entertaining.

It’s a film that is based mainly on dialogue with only a few well timed action pieces.

On the whole I enjoyed it. However there are a few things left unexplained for me. We never learn who, if anyone is charging Ray with his tasks and one of his major decisions in the film never really feels as if it’s fully explained. That’s small criticism though in a film that holds your attention throughout.

In the screening I was in I counted 11 walk-outs. It’s really not that graphic. Neither is the dialogue all that crude. I wondered if some of the audience thought they were going to see a film about an actual magician.