Recent Reviews for Death Defying Acts
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MCT:October 2, 2008Facinating life of Houdini and the impressive following he had; but a troubled soul, Guy Pearce is excellent, Catherine Z-J equally complicated and one strong lady!!
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MCT:September 25, 2008
Wouldn't you just go out and try to get arrested??? Very enjoyable depiction of the life and death of Houdini. Catherine Zeta-Jones is one of my fav's so may have scored an extra half-star...but Guy Pearce was excellent as well.
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MCT:August 11, 2008I JUST SAW IT AND I FIND IT GOOD..
I PROPABLY WOULDN'T GO TO SEE IT AT A THEATER..ONLY IN DVD OR TV..
"THE ILLUSIONIST" HAD A DIFFERENT SCRIPT (MORE LIKE THE PRESTIGE) BUT IT WAS WORSE...
GOOD BUT IF IT HAD A BETTER SCRIPT AND MAYBE NOT CATHRINE ZETA JONES ( I WOULD LIKE ANOTHER ACTOR FOR THIS PART) I COULD BE BETTER...
"THE PRESTIGE" 15/10
"DEATH DEFYING ACTS" 6/10
"THE ILLUSIONIST" 5,5/10 -
MCT:August 2, 2008lumayan lah ni film ga must see juga seh. tapi kita jadi tw kehidupan houdini yg sebenernya.... gt aja
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MCT:July 31, 2008Directed by: Gillian ArmstrongMy Brilliant Career and Oscar and Lucinda director Gillian Armstrong explores the final feat of the greatest illusionist ever to deceive a live audience in this docudrama concerning Harry Houdini's obsessive quest to find proof of an afterlife. The year is 1926, and Houdini (Guy Pearce) is an international superstar. Not only does the illusionist's otherworldly ability to bend reality hold audiences completely enthralled, but his easy charm finds him winning the hearts of his growing legion of fans as well. Yet behind Houdini's winning smile resides the restless heart of a tortured soul. Isolated by fame and drowning in regret over having not been present to hear his mother's last words, Houdini sets out in tour of Scotland and announces that he will pay 10,000 dollars to anyone who can prove spiritual contact with his deceased mother. But in his determination to prove that there is life after death, Houdini also becomes the target of countless charlatans, scam artists, and self-proclaimed spiritualists. Of course, stunning psychic Mary McGregor (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her daughter/sidekick, Benji (Saoirse Ronan), seem remarkably sincere in their supernatural talents, yet that doesn't mean that the pair doesn't have their own ulterior motives for making a connection with the world-famous magic man.
Genres: Romance, Art House & International, Mystery & Suspense, Drama
Casts : Guy Pearce, Catherina Zeta-Jones, Saoirse Ronan, Timothy Spall
Well for starters, we've seen a flurry of flicks in the recent couple of years about the art of illusion. We had the magical Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in the phenomenal The Prestige as two magician rivals, , were bitter rival magicians, struggle to win over love and illusion achievement. We had Edward Norton starred in The Illusionist. But along came Harry Houdini played by Guy Pearce, as the master escapologist in Gillian Armstrong's flick Death Defying Acts.
There's no real tension throughout the movie and simply nothing specific to root for. Alas, that center doesn't hold: There's inadequate chemistry between the two leads, and it isn't convincingly written into their characters, either. On the contrary both of the leads do their accents pretty good. But simply a star quality in them is unable to retrieve the two unlikable characters that hardly seem to be made for each other, you know what I'm saying. Apparently, the whole movie 100% depends on the 'spot the star' syndrome which commonly happen in Hollywood movie industry. Saoirse Ronan is one talented actress and I think she is the best among the other casts. We all have witnessed her greatness in her previous movie Atonement and despite all the dislikeness of this particular movie, we may watch the encore of her amazing gift.
The sad part of Death Defying Acts tries to convey whatsoever its senior The Prestige or The Illusionist set into motion. I didn't find anything, one damn single thing to be remembered of, yet it was disappointing and pretty much a failure.
"May God have mercy.. on my immortal soul."
-The Great Harry Houdini- -
MCT:July 30, 2008
Love is inescapable.
DIRECTED BY: Gillian Armstrong
STARRING: Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Saoirse Ronan, Timothy SpallSynopsis
My Brilliant Career, Oscar and Lucinda director Gillian Armstrong explores the final feat of the greatest illusionist ever to deceive a live audience in this docudrama concerning Harry Houdini's obsessive quest to find proof of an afterlife. The year is 1926, and Houdini (Guy Pearce) is an international superstar. Not only does the illusionist's otherworldly ability to bend reality hold audiences completely enthralled, but his easy charm finds him winning the hearts 
of his growing legion of fans as well. Yet behind Houdini's winning smile resides the restless heart of a tortured soul. Isolated by fame and drowning in regret over having not been present to hear his mother's last words, Houdini sets out in tour of Scotland and announces that he will pay 10,000 dollars to anyone who can prove spiritual contact with his deceased mother. But in his determination to prove that there is life after death, Houdini also becomes the target of countless charlatans, scam artists, and self-proclaimed spiritualists. 
Of course, stunning psychic Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her daughter/sidekick, Benji (Saoirse Ronan), seem remarkably sincere in their supernatural talents, yet that doesn't mean that the pair doesn't have their own ulterior motives for making a connection with the world-famous magic man.Source: StarpulseMy Review
A moment before I started to review this movie, I took a look at my rating system, and found a proper rating for this movie. "A HAMBURGER WITHOUT MEAT INSIDE ITS BUN," it says. And that's what I found on this movie. SOULLESS. I enjoyed it more that Hancock, but why do I give these the same rating? Well, I'm trying to be a little miss objective. Death Defying Acts is a movie with serious dialogs for the one and a half hours of its running time, and if we look from its genre, Death Defying Acts was meant to touch the viewers like The Prestige, or a suspense drama such as Mystic River. But we can find its dullness right from the title (I mean, Death Defying Acts? Even my little brother can find something better with more curiousity inside of it.)
I don't blame the idea for the failure. And Houdini's end quotes seem interesting to me so fro a moment I thought it was an OKAY movie. It's just they force the whole Houdini's great life stories to fit in the small box they prepared for this movie. May I tell them that it's not enough to hire an actress like Catherine Zeta-Jones to make things work. They still need a better script, a more suitable actor to play Houdini, and someone else to do the Scottish accent.
Zeta-Jones, she is a GREAT actress, and I will love her role as much as I love other roles she had if only the movie is setted with British accent. However an actress is no God, she can't speak decent Scottish accent in just a few month of character development and voila, she speaks like a Scottish breed. And so what happened to Saoirse Ronan. She is in the top of her career after Atonement and SHE ENCORES THE GREATNESS OF HER ROLE THERE. Just I prefer hear her in her original American accent, or at least British wouldn't kill her performance. And what's so frightening about the movie is that they seem to be running out of money to hire someone better, who has more charisma, or at least older that Pearce to do the role. This is one of, what do they call it, A FAILURE TO PORTRAY A LEGEND.
So overall, Death Defying Acts is no The Prestige. Although it's not Nolan's best, but still, it is slightly better in everyway compared to this another mediocre movie that Zeta-Jones picked after her Oscar-ly performance in Chicago. I'm just hoping that she will not be another actress who got an Oscar curse and whose career will be drowned after they get THE HIGHEST APPRECIATION THEY CAN GIVE FOR MOVIE WORKERS.
May God have mercy... On my immortal soul.
-Guy Pearce as Harry Houdini-
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MCT:July 27, 2008
An interesting mash-up of fiction and real events. An ambiguous ending is unsatisfying. For my money, The Illusionist is the strongest of the recent "magician" films.
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MCT:July 19, 2008What? Houdini was a notorious skeptic in these matters! He critersised Conan Doyle for making Sherlock a believer! NO!
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MCT:July 10, 2008
Good performances and beautifful photography, this movie works well as a fine romance. But the thematic has already been explored with maestry in ThePrestige, and this one stay in the shadow of that movie.
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MCT:July 2, 2008
Scottish local: Welcome back to Scotland, Mr. Houdini!
Harry Houdini: Thank you, son. That monster Nessie still here?
Scottish local: 'Aye, she's still here.
Harry Houdini: Well, why don't you tell Nessie that this Harry Houdini's gonna tie a knot in her tail and fling her into the Scottish Ocean?"
What had drawn me to watch Death Defying Acts is that it's a story with Harry Houdini, arguably the greatest illusionist and escape artist of our time. A few days ago I was browsing through a book which revealed the secrets behind his brand of death defying acts, and really he's a man of science, engineering and most of all, a performer to bring to life the act of fooling an audience into believing his stunts. Sure there's an element of danger, but with proper risk assessment and safeguards, they strip away all the mystique that serves to confound.
But contrary to the title, there's nothing really death defying about the film, as it threaded on safe ground and didn't dwell any more on the illusions that it has to. In fact, you can count the number of stunts which involve Harry Houdini, and the filmmakers left that for another biographical film that someone else should pick up on. What we have instead are glimpses into the man's personal life, and Guy Pearce provided quite an intense and charismatic Houdini with personal demons of his own to battle with, though the story seemed to rein him in from dwelling too much on that aspect, and preferred to have a more romantic tale weaved in.
The romanticism of the film is not with his illusions, but with a single parent who's a psychic of sorts, relying on her street smarts to get her own act going. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the fictional Mary McGarvie, who has to rely on her wits to build credibility for her stage character. Together with daughter and sidekick Benji (the world's newest star, Saoirse Ronan), the mother and daughter team tries hard to make a living from their acts, but realize that they're by no means close to Houdini's widespread fame and fortune.
However, Houdini himself throws a gauntlet to all psychics far and wide, that whosoever can accurately reveal what his late mother had last said to him, will inherit US $10,000. His purpose, it seems, is to reveal that the majority of these soothsayers are tricksters in disguise, until of course he meets the luminous Mary, and affairs of the heart throws him off course. Naturally, Mary and Benji find themselves up against the best in the business, but when your back is against the wall, there's nothing much to lose, it seems.
As mentioned earlier, this film's more of a character study of the master magician, and explores things like his guilt because of dedication to his craft and performance, as well as his questionable motives in being attracted to Mary McGarvie. Narrated by the character of Benji, we see things through a child's eyes, and perhaps therein lies the loss of some pathos in the romantic angle of it. On one hand, it isn't your classic romantic story, while on the other, it doesn't seem to want to preach the method, rationale and mindset of Houdini himself.
So what emerged is a mixed bag. Beautifully shot by Cypriot cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and with a stunning score by Australian composer Cezary Skubiszewski, but again falling on the emptiness of its effort in trying to allow the audience to feel for the characters. At least Timothy Spall, who plays Mr Sugarman, Houdini's manager, allowed for some light moments as the guarded and wary person that he is, and the young Saoirse Ronan is always a joy to watch, even if her Scottish accent may sound a bit forced occasionally. And credit goes to keeping the ending quite right too. -
MCT:July 2, 2008It is 1926, and the world-famous illusionist Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) is on a world tour. Houdini has missed the dying moments of his mother and is paying $10,000 to anyone who can tell him his mother's last words.
When Houdini reaches Edinburgh he meets the deceptive 'psychic' Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her young daughter Benji (Saoirse Ronan) who are determined to earn the reward. But as the story goes on the relationships become more complex which proves a problem...
Pearce's portrayal of Houdini is truly outstounding in this film, as well as looking the part his versatility makes his acting natural and believable. Houdini's relationship with Mary is intense and full of chemistry giving the film a different feel than is expected. Gillian Armstrong (director) has based the film surprisingly around the Houdini - McGarvie relationship instead of Houdini's acts which is a very bold move but I think that it pulls off and makes the film that much different and better.
Zeta-Jones delivers a very good performance as the mysterious McGarvie and her romance with Houdini is compelling as the main focus of the film.
As she has already proved in Atonement, Saoirse Ronan is a startlingly good actor and her performance in Death Defying Acts is no less developed.
Overall it is a visually stunning film with good relationships, intensity and amazing actors. I loved this film, 4 and a half out of five.
For more information go to: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18064433001 -
MCT:May 30, 2008
However fascinating the story of Harry Houdini might be, this film just didn't live up to my expectations. I was looking for something like The Illusionist or The Prestige. The similarities are ofcourse there but the film isn't even close to as good as the others were.
Guy Pearce is a good actor and Zeta Jones looks stunning as always but it didn't seem like they had any onscreen chemistry at all and the film seemed so devoid of any real life emotions. Saoirse Ronan and Timothy Spall both did much better. Also the screenplay sucked and the script was mediocre. I'm pretty sure this was what ruined the movie for me.
It's a shame this was disappointing, coz the story had so much potential. -
MCT:May 29, 2008I like Guy Pearce and I think Zeta-Jones, although not the greatest actress, is a beautiful woman. I didn't expect this movie to be so devoid of feeling and heart. The chemistry between Jones and Pearce was nowhere to be found and the best thing this movie has to offer is the acting ability of Saoirse Ronan. Compared to other movies with magic as its central theme, this movie can't stand toe to toe with The Illusionist or The Prestige. I watched this movie specifically because I was very interested in this part of Harry Houdini's life. Although most of this movie is fiction, there are parts that are fact, like Houdini's famous challenge and hobby of showing that mystics were nothing but fakes and although his death was technically that way, it would have been great to have seen Houdini do the last show he did with a ruptured appendix. This movie has no magic, literally or otherwise.
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MCT:May 7, 2008
No me gustó mucho.. es dificil no compararla con "El Ilusionista" y siendo asi, esta deja mucho que desear. Saoirse Ronan interpreta bastante bien su papel, es lo más rescatable de toda la pelicula.
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MCT:April 14, 2008
Si la magia es el arte del engaño esta película es pura magia, porque engaña al espectador incansablemente.
Engañ a porque presenta a una Catherine Zeta-Jones en un papel de madre cuando más bien parece una madastra. Engaña porque resulta difícil de creer que un hombre de robusta personalidad como Houdini caiga a los pies de tan insulsa farandulera. Y engaña porque todo el peso de la cinta recae en unos secundarios que trituran sin compasión a los principales, mención especial para la pequeña Saoirse Ronan, de la cual ansiamos que no le ocurra como a su personaje, que se diluya su don.
Argumentalmente muestra todas las cartas sobre la mesa desde un primer momento, evitando ahondar en el mito del mago para derrotar hacia el drama romántico.
Resulta inevitable la comparación con sus dos inmediatas predecesoras, "El ilusionista" y "The prestige". Y de la comparación no sale muy bien parada. Si bien la primera pincelaba una magia romántica y etérea y la segunda ahondaba en los entresijos tras las bambalinas, la obra que nos ocupa parece escapar de todo atisbo de magia en sus entrañas, utilizándola más como una excusa que como un hilo argumental.
Ventajas : La pequeña Saoirse y el gran Timothy Spall.
Desventajas: Demasiado amor y pocos trucos de magia. -
MCT:April 6, 2008
A very entertaining drama that started well but drifted off towards the end. Saoirse Ronan was the star in my opinion and did an excellent job.
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MCT:April 3, 2008
I only managed to watch about half an hour of this film. So many thing made me turn it off. First would be those bloody awful accents. Saoirse Ronan narrates the film and the first shot is just water and she begins talking in an attempted Scottish accent. It was a bit iffy in places but I thought ok, she's young and from America so I can put up with it. Then the image of Edinburgh castle appears. Huge mistake in my books. If this young girl is meant to be convincing as someone from Edinburgh why the hell is she talking is a Glasweigen accent. Being someone who was born in Edinburgh it's a big deal when everyone thinks we all talk with the same accent. There is a huge difference no matter what people say. I know most people wouldn't notice that but I did and it was one of a few reasons I just can't watch anymore of this film. Another would be that is was just down right boring.
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MCT:March 30, 2008
"Atos que desafiam a morte" conta com um roteiro desastroso que não sabe como dar um desfecho a história que começou.
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MCT:March 29, 2008
Ótimo filme!!! Saoirse Ronan rouba a cena sempre! Ela é maravilhosa!!!! Depois de sua grande atuação em atonement, ela reaparece nesse grande filme, acompanhada de catherine zeta jones e Guy Pearce. Filme romântico, engraçado, bonito, intrigante, emocionante. Adoreeeeei!!!!!
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MCT:March 16, 20082 b honest i was pretty dissapointed wit this film!!! houidini was a very interesting man and this film 2 me made him rather boring!!
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MCT:March 13, 2008one of the best film of Catherine zeta jones... really good! A fascinating story with a great cast, i recommand it!
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MCT:March 10, 2008
Sure it looks nice, but lack of chemistry between the two stars leaves this film kinda of flaccid. Saoirse Ronan is stellar though.
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MCT:December 27, 2007Death Defying Acts Summary:
My Brilliant Career and Oscar and Lucinda director Gillian Armstrong explores the final feat of the greatest illusionist ever to deceive a live audience in this docudrama concerning Harry Houdini's obsessive quest to find proof of an afterlife. The year is 1926, and Houdini (Guy Pearce) is an international superstar. Not only does the illusionist's otherworldly ability to bend reality hold audiences completely enthralled, but his easy charm finds him winning the hearts of his growing legion of fans as well. Yet behind Houdini's winning smile resides the restless heart of a tortured soul. Isolated by fame and drowning in regret over having not been present to hear his mother's last words, Houdini sets out in tour of Scotland and announces that he will pay 10,000 to anyone who can prove spiritual contact with his deceased mother. But in his determination to prove that there is life after death, Houdini also becomes the target of countless charlatans, scam artists and self-proclaimed spiritualists. Of course stunning psychic Mary McGregor (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her daughter/sidekick Benji (Saoirse Ronan) seem remarkably sincere in their supernatural talents, yet that doesn't mean that the pair doesn't have their own ulterior motives for making a connection with the world famous magic man. -
MCT:October 26, 2007
Not a great film, but competent. I'm generally not a fan of period films, but this one is carried well by Guy Pearce's charasmatic performance (who is quickly rising my list of favourite actors, after this and his perfect portrayal of Andy Warhol earlier this year). Catherine Zeta-Jones stars as a shill of a psychic trying to win a cash prize from Pearce's Harry Houdini, who has offered the reward to anyone who can deliver to him his mother's dying words. A weak premise for a story really, and with it being told from the point of view of Zeta-Jones's character's daughter, who has a very heavy Scottish accent, it was a admittedly hard to follow. See it if you're a fan of magic or the actors, but be warned, this is a highly embellished story of the famous escape artist, not a biographical tale in any way.
