The Magician
Yesterday evening after a feed in the ‘Nothren Palace’ (their spelling) on Moore st - which incidentally has changed it’s name to the ‘China House’ or somesuch and is now in a large, large, LARGE room downstairs and to the left of the Russian Deli - we headed up to Cineworld and caught the 8.30 showing of ‘The Magician’.
A mockumentary in the style of ‘Man Bites Dog’, The Magician tells the story of Ray (Scott Ryan) a hitman living in Melbourne. Max (Massimiliano Andrighetto) is the ’student filmaker’ documenting time spent in Ray’s life.
But this isn’t a guns blazing shoot ‘em up of a movie. Most of the ‘footage’ revolves around Ray’s day to day activities. Driving, waiting, eating, taking a piss. And it’s from this banality that the discussions are formed. Everything from who was in the cast of the Dirty Dozen to what car would you drive if money was no object. There is violence of course. The first scene involves Ray giving someone what he euphemistacally calls ‘the good news’ and again later when you start to get just a little too comfortable with Ray, after you’ve laughed at one too many of his jokes, or started to feel that he’s not such a bad person there is a timely reminder of who he is and just what it is he does.
IMDB (The wiki of movies) tells me that the movie was made on a budget of $3000(AU) and shot in 10 days. Which if it’s true is one hell of an achievement for a first time writer \ director \ producer \ editor and actor.
Go see if you get a chance. Scott Ryan is amazingly charismatic on the big screen, however I don’t know if that will translate to DVD.
