About the movie
The Great Buck Howard
Rating: 
Cast:
Emily Blunt; Colin Hanks; John Malkovich; Steve Zahn; Tom Hanks
Directed by:
Sean McGinly
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READER FEEDBACK
Malkovich charms in ‘Buck’
"The Great Buck Howard" arrives at an opportune moment, when tough times have given cheesy entertainment a good name.
Audiences crave the mental comfort food of an accessible good time, and "Buck Howard" is an affectionate ode to the kind of performer who provides just that.
The movie is written and directed by Sean McGinly, who worked as a road manager for The Amazing Kreskin, and has built this fictionalized movie around the experience.
Buck Howard (nicely played by John Malkovich) is a "mentalist" who charms elderly crowds (they remember him from the Johnny Carson show) in small-city auditoriums with magic, hypnosis, and the occasional horrific song.
His days as a national headliner are long gone, but he retains his diva temperament - life on the road is often demeaning for his rookie manager (Colin Hanks), an aspiring writer who quit law school to learn the ropes of the entertainment business.
"Buck Howard" is a familiar movie of apprenticeship and coming-of-age, blandly staged, over-narrated, and Hanks is an undynamic screen presence. (His on-screen romance with foxy Emily Blunt is unconvincing.)
Malkovich, though, pulls our attention more and more to old Buck, whose commitment to wowing what remains of his dwindling audience becomes increasingly touching, even heroic.
Buck's commitment pays off when an accident of publicity makes him briefly hip (here the movie uses generous celebrity cameos to good effect) and again in demand.
We're led to believe that he'll do anything for another shot at the big time, but it turns out he won't. He's uncomfortable as an ironic joke for drunken Vegas fatcats. There's money in it, because there's no SOUL.
Buck earnestly loves the fans who love his act, and it matters not that his audience is small, old, or unfashionable. There may be no real magic in Buck's act, but there's magic in that. *
Produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, wr*tten and d*rected by Sean McG*nly.
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