In 1986 F/X, ingenious action thriller about film special effects expert using his skills to defeat real life criminals, became a sleeper hit. Like almost all such hits in 1980s, it was bound to have a sequel. This happened in 1991 with F/X2, film directed by Richard Franklin (and distributed in some areas with subtitle The Deady Art of Illusion).
Bryan Brown returns in the role of Rollie Tyler, master of special effects. Plot begins five years after the events of the first film, with Rollie now retired from business and instead building toys, including remotely controlled clown-like robot known as Blue. He lives with new girlfriend Kim Brandon (played by Rachel Ticotin) and her 11-year old son Chris (played by Dominic Zamprogna). He is also friend with Kim’s ex husband, NYPD detective Mark (played by Tom Mason). He asks Rollie for a favour which including using his skills to create illusion that should serve as a trap for dangerous maniac that threatens a supermodel. Rollie reluctantly agrees and does what is asked from him. The sting operation, however, goes terribly wrong with both the maniac and Mark getting killed. Rollie, however, had secretly installed cameras at the scenes which allows him to see that the Mark’s killer was someone else. When he sees that Mark’s boss Lieutenant Silak (played by Phillip Bosco), wants to quickly wrap investigation while demanding access to all of Mark’s personal possessions, Rollie concludes that the whole operation was trap for Mark, killed because he had discovered something that might compromise Silak. His life is in danger but Leo McCarthy (played by Brian Dennehy), his old partne and former police detective, now working as private investigator, comes to help him and uncover huge conspiracy.
Script for the sequel was written by Bill Condon, film maker who would have very successful career in late 1990s and first two decades of 21st Century. On one hand, he tried to stick to the narrative formula of the first film – Rollie gets hired to provide help to law enforcement, discovers some dirty shenanigans behind it, gets his life in danger only to be rescued by Leo who comes roughly at the half of the film. On the other hand, he tried to make things a little bit more different with new details, like protagonist having family and conspiracy being more complicated. The result is bloated and convoluted plot that makes film unnecessary overlong. Richard Franklin, Australian director known for surprisingly successful sequel to Hitchcock’s Psycho, doesn’t show steady hand in this film and F/X2 many times looks like a cheap television production, an effect enhanced by underwhelming and underused score by Lalo Schifrin. However, any time F/X2 is about to become too boring there comes an inventive action scene during which Rollie shows MacGyver-level abilities of improvisation to defeat dangerous adversaries in impressive and ingenious way. Bryan Brown, who also served as an executive producer, is solid in his role, but gets overshadowed by Brian Dennehy, character actor who marvels at rare opportunity to play a star. Despite tonal shifts between tragedy, violence and light comedy, F/X2 mostly works and it could be recommended to the audience that learned not to expect too much from Hollywood sequels.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/16820-f-x-2 Critic: AA
