The Magician

Dir: Scott Ryan

2005

****

Scott Ryan’s The Magician came out in 2005 after months of hype from the film press and then disappeared without a trace. I was curious but worried that it was going to be a rip off of Rémy Belvaux’s brilliant 1992 mockumentary Man Bites Dog that also follows a killer going about his day to day business. In Man Bites Dog our protagonist Ben is a serial killer but in Scott Ryan’s The Magician are protagonist Ray is a hired hitman but the flow of the film is quite similar. However, while Man Bites Dog is rather disturbing and dark, The Magician is far lighter and is darkly comic. Ben spoke of the ‘craft’ of murder, classical music, the failings of modern architecture and recited his own poetry, while Ray is actually quite likable and a decent Aussie bloke. It’s Man Bites Dog with Chopper instead of Ben, although to be fair it is more than that. The film comes about when Ray discovers that his next-door neighbour is a film student. He commissions him to document his life but the footage is to be released only in the event of his early death, which is a possibility in his line of business. Scott Ryan has a gift for the Aussie vernacular that makes his character instantly watchable and it becomes clear fairly early on that it's not the violence that Ryan is focusing on, but the conversation, the banalities and intensities of human interaction and the obsessive interest in detail. It all makes total sense that a hitman would be as obsessive, confident and narcissistic. The film, filmed over a year with around ten days of shooting in total, is full of improvised dialog and is shot with raw realism and you really believe you are getting an insight into the mind of a flawed killer. Scott Ryan takes his time on camera, you see him thinking and he slowly becomes disturbingly real. The editing is impressive, with Ryan taking his time with certain scenes and all slowly build and form his character. It is an impressive and passionate performance. Made on a shoe-string budget of just A$330,000 and using only amateur actors, Ryan has clearly thought hard about what he wanted to achieve. His writing, directing, editing and performance are all first-rate, to the point that I think with such talent he should never be given a big budget as it might make him relax, or worse still, give one of his jobs to someone else to do. The film begins darkly but comic but the latter half presents a more sobering tone. The mid section is more about clever dialogue which, at times, can be extremely funny. Scenes such as the bet between the film maker and Ray if Clint Eastwood was in The Dirty Dozen, and involves the mark who is stashed in the boot of their car, is absurdly funny, and this is a pattern which follows for most of the lighter middle part of the film. However the darker sections are the more intriguing, such as making a victim dig his own grave in the middle of nowhere, and the scene where Ray explains his planned hit in the darkened car - these scenes are thoroughly absorbing. The contrast between comedy and brutality work very well but for me the downside of the movie is the performance of Massimiliano Andrighetto who plays the film maker, Max "Massimo" Totti. Considering the situation and the acts he's witnessing Ray commit, I found it hard to accept his open and often argumentative approach with the character. In Man Bites Dog the film crew are clearly scared and intimidated throughout until they get involved with the murders themselves but Max doesn’t do this. I was just never convinced, his character was needed for the style of the film but I’m not sure he was written or performed as well as Ray was. I forever thought that Ray's patience would break and he would grow tired of arguing with him and either kill him or beat him up. I guess this shows the measured and calculating hitman but I’m not sure that was the intention. I guess it would have been too obvious. I could just couldn’t believe the idea that the film maker would be so fearless. Scott Ryan is superb and the film is an amazing achievement. I really don’t like to compare films but as good as The Magician is I can’t help but do so. It is essentially a different take on Man Bites Dog and the 1992 film is an utter masterpiece that cannot be bettered. It is different and the scenarios are not the same but where it really counts it is dangerously close if not lacking the same levels of suspense. It is a fantastic achievement as I say, it’s just that there is another film out there that does the same and does it so much better. I guess they can co-exist though, as one is a clever comedy and the other is a horror masterpiece.