Magicians

Plot synopsis:
Harry Kane and Karl Allen are best friends who work together in a successful and popular magic double act, with Harry's wife Carol working as their assistant. After one show, however, Harry discovers Karl and Carol backstage in a magic box having sex (during an agreement between Harry and the theatre owner about letting the act go on for 4 more weeks and letting them do an act on a cruise ship). During the next show, Carol is locked into a guillotine as part of a climatic trick, only for the blade to decapitate her; it is not immediately clear whether Harry, despite his protestations of innocence, has murdered her or whether she was the victim of a freak accident. Four years later, the act has broken up and the two friends – now bitter rivals – have gone their separate ways; Harry, having given up professional magic, is working in a Wilkinson hardware store, only to be fired after a customer complains when he creates an illusion of him cutting his arm severely with a knife blade during a sales pitch, whilst Karl is attempting to reinvent himself as a Derren Brown-esque magician called the Mindmonger, with limited success. During an unsuccessful impromptu-pitch at a television corporation, the only person he manages to impress is Dani, the tea girl, who Karl immediately gets a crush on much to the jealousy of his incompetent agent Otto, who nurses an unsubtle homosexual crush on him.
After numerous failed attempts at raising money, Harry sees a poster for the "Magic shield" competition held in Jersey, with a prize of £20,000, and decides to enter. Trying to find a new assistant, Harry is forced to recruit the only applicant, Linda, an old work friend whose only entertainment skill is a poor dancing routine. Harry swallows his pride and contacts Karl, who agrees to enter the competition with him; although their reputation in the magic community is still strong enough to get them into the tournament without an audition, the tensions between them ultimately prove too strong and they decide to go solo from that point on. As Harry and Linda rehearse their magic act, they begin to grow closer, but whilst Linda is open about her interest in Harry, he is too uptight and insecure to fully express his reciprocation. Much to his discomfort, Linda discovers the guillotine amongst his magic props and convinces him to use it as the centrepiece of the finale. Karl, meanwhile, is delighted to learn that Dani has come down from London to see him perform, but is slightly alarmed to discover that she believes him to be a genuine psychic. He nevertheless goes along with her belief, particularly as the interest in the competition has seen him approached by a television producer who wants to make him the centrepiece of a psychic show. Karl agrees to make his act for the finale a medium display, but begins to suffer a crisis of conscience. Karl tries a trick where he is buried in sand for a day.
Upon learning that Harry has not told Linda of what happened to his wife, Karl informs her. Harry panics when he discovers that her hotel room is vacant, believing she has returned to London. He conquers his fear of flying to immediately fly back to London, only to discover as soon as he gets there that she has merely switched rooms and forgotten to inform him. Managing to return to Jersey in time to compete by telling Linda to make one of the judges delay the act, both Harry and Karl make it through to the final; Linda claims that she is okay with hearing about what happened to Carol, but tensions between both begin to grow as she struggles to trust him. The night of the finale, Harry is heartbroken to learn that Linda has apparently slept with another magician, the sleazy and unethical Tony White; although Linda confirms it, she is lying in an attempt to force Harry to open up about his feelings, which he is still unable to do. Karl, meanwhile, finally prepares to consummate his relationship with Dani, but admits that he is not a true psychic after she thinks he is contacting her dead father, and betrayed, she shuns him.
That night, Karl and Harry have a confrontation backstage, in which Karl accuses Harry of murdering Carol; Harry angrily rejects the accusation and challenges that Karl merely finds it easier to believe that rather than accept the guilt of betraying his best friend. On stage, Karl begins to pioneer his psychic act, but the stooge he has hired in the crowd which he had chosen with a fake random ball toss, accidentally trips and concusses himself on the stage. Upon hearing the sad story of another selected audience member, he decides that he cannot perpetuate the fraud, admitting to the audience that he is not able to contact the dead. As a result, Dani forgives him. Harry, as 'The Black Widower', starts his guillotine act, but at the moment of truth Linda's nerve fails her and she flees the stage. Although Harry’s act would appear to be ruined when he asks if anybody else wants to try, Karl steps forward and announces that he will face the guillotine instead. Karl allows himself to be locked in the guillotine, explaining that Carol was frequently unfaithful and forced Karl to have sex with her. Harry appears to decapitate Karl – although it is merely an illusion, and Karl appears unharmed, the trick having worked perfectly. Harry wins the competition, and in his acceptance speech both forgives Karl and admits that he loves Linda, who joins him on stage and the two kiss. Their friendship mended, Karl and Harry embark on a reunion tour, incorporating Dani and Linda into the act as their assistants.

Tags: comedy, entertaining

Review:
Mitchell and Webb were great (as ever), Jessica Stevenson, Darren Boyd and Peter Capaldi were also great (as ever)...but there was just something about it.
Now having said that, there were plenty of great jokes, nuances, the odd subversion, and so forth - not to mention magic tricks.
There has been a sudden stream of movies revolving around magic, of course there's the obvious fantasy stuff with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, but what I am really on about is movie revolving around stage magicians.
You see Magicians is a comedy, its not a period piece like the last two, and this movie in all honesty couldn't give a toss about magic.
Magicians is the first movie outing for Mitchell and Webb, stars of cult TV Show Peep Show.
I personally have never seen Peep Show, but from what I've seen of the pair on chat shows I can tell that they are very funny people, and thankfully aren't as one note comedically like the Little Britain duo are.
This was proved specifically with last years dire Alien Autopsy starring Ant and Dec. I was looking forward to Magicians, but was also aware it was probably not going to be that good.
However, what a nice surprise it is to say that Magicians is a very funny movie.
The lead duo of the movie, David Mitchell and Robert Webb are what make this movie great.
Jessica Stevenson is a joy to watch as the dippy assistant, and she gets some of the best scenes in the movie.
My personal favourite is a dance scene that is actually funny to watch (yes Spiderman take note, we want dance sequence in comedies, not superhero movie!).
Peter Capaldi runs over the hills with the movie as the compère of the magic show, a role that was so brilliantly written.
Darren Boyd also has a great role as Webb's agent.The comedy rate of the movie is pretty high, yet there is still a lot of misses dotted about the movie.
But the movies comedy really sparks when Mitchell and Webb are on screen together.
The pair have such great sequences together, that when they're taken apart it seems like the movie is desperately filling in a large gap with other characters.
Sometimes these characters manage to distract the audience, but it is noticeable at times, and some of the jokes fail quite miserably to hit the right note.
I had a good time while watching the movie, but by the end I became aware that I couldn't remember a lot of it.
The comedy never reaches great heights, its a movie full of small laughs and the occasional bigger laugh.
In this respect this movie never really suits the talents of Mitchell and Webb as its always noticeable that the actors are funnier than the movie they're in.Magicians in the long run is a good, solid piece of fun.
Many years go by and Karl is still working as a magician but is trying to break into the TV niche held by David Blaine, Derrel Brown and others of that ilk.
However barely minutes into it, old tensions resurface and the pair split again to go head-to-head.It is a little concerning to watch the progress of the career or Mitchell and Webb.
However it must be said that these moments are not frequent enough and mostly the film is just not that funny.The rather British "awkward" humour is OK but not as well done as those used to it will have seen it done other places.
Mitchell and Webb are both pretty good when the material is given to them but again, this is not often enough for what they have shown they are able to do.
Credit to Mitchell and Webb for trying to show that they are much more than just Peep Show actors, but Magicians is not the vehicle that will do that for them..
I'm a big fan of Mitchell and Webb and thought this film was really going to make me laugh...it didn't.
There are some funny moments but nothing special, and i agree that it falls very short of Peep Show and definitely thought that Armstrong and Bain could have come up with something a lot more exciting and funny.
The plot is boring and a few gags enable it to just keep going but the writers have a long way to go until they reach Pegg and Wright, in the British Comedy Films department...Stick to T.V.I'd say it's a film to rent or go round your mates house and watch if they end up buying it.
Mitchell & Webb have done some very funny material in the past.
This film is, at best, mildly amusing.The premise is amusing, in a black comedy way.The characters are amusing, occasionally.The script is amusing, in places.Individually all of the contributors are capable of so much more and it is disappointing to end up with a film that aspires to be funny but falls short in so many ways.
Much of the humour is hackneyed and its predictability takes away so much of the punch that you find yourself hunting for humour that ultimately is not there to find.Overall the best I can bring myself to recommend is if this comes round on TV and you have little else to do on a rainy day give it a try..
You won't laugh every seconds, but the over whole of the movie is funny.
While I have been very disappointed with brits-com like "Love actually", one of the worst movie i have even seen in my life, the little budget "Magicians" manages far better.
Which means that some good cause somewhere has had to go without funding so that Mitchell and Webb can not be funny in this crappy film.And that really sucks..
I've just got back from seeing Mithcell and Webb's new 'out of this world, hilarious' movie and I have to say I'm more than disappointed.Firstly, the format is very tepid, with the old 'two mates fall out and then compete against each other before coming together to succeed in the end'...reminds me quite of a Will Ferrell film.
Sums it up really....Sure, Mitchell and Webb work well together and give the film a little extra (god help us if they hadn't been in it) but overall, considering this was written by the same team as the great Peep Show, this is very poor with very little to shout about.....Stick to telly guys!.
For me, Peter Capaldi absolutely steals every scene he's in; he can do more comedy with one facial expression than many comedians can pull off in an entire stand-up act, and he's perfect for the role of the bureaucratic petty tyrant in charge of the magic contest.
However, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a certain kind of charm.Yes, it's the 'Peep Show' film.
It just has the two main stars from the (hilarious) cult TV show, David Mitchell and Robert Webb in the lead roles.
Just.Despite Mitchell and Webb basically playing the same characters from Peep Show, but with different names, Magicians falls short on laugh out loud moments.
Yes, it doesn't come anywhere close to Peep Show and falls even further afield from what it could achieve, based on the talent linked with the film.What you get is an adult comedy which has a few laughs along the way and is a bit predictable.
If you've got nothing else to watch and this happens to be on the telly (and you're a fan of Mitchell and Webb) then give it a go.
My wife decided to rent this film as she is a fan of "Peek show" and "Mitchel and Webb".Neither of us completed the film, we were bored from start to finish (or in our case the middle), the attempts at humour were obvious, there were jokes which were just crude and not funny (this comes from someone who watches South Park!) Wouldn't recommend this film to anyone unless they are hardcore Mitchell and Webb fans.It is a shame to see the British market produce such a low grade comedy, this film really dropped my opinion of the two main cast members, and i feel ashamed as people in other countries will just think it is British awkward humour, lets get another Simon Pegg comedy out there quick to make up for this pap.Uwe Boll could of done a better job!.
Mitchell & Webb fail to capture the Peep Show magic.
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning David Mitchell and Robert Webb, who became cult favourites with the TV classic Peep Show, failed to re-capture that magic with this hugely disappointing big screen outing.
Taking aim at the world of stage act magicians, this has them as one time best friends in the same profession, who fall out when the one has an affair with the other's wife and subsequently he accidentally kills her.
It all plays basically like Peep Show The Movie but somewhere towards the beginning you lose interest, the laughs fail to flow and you find it a huge slog to the end.
The reason I watched this movie is because of the actors, Robert Webb and David Mitchell.
I heard of many rave reviews about these two actors in their show, Peep Show, so I gave this movie a try.Man, I was so disappointed.
Well, I haven't seen Peep Show and I don't know how great Mitchell and Webb are in that production, but evaluating on the basis what I saw on Magicians - I have only one message to those guys: "Don't quit your day job!" Script wasn't good - jokes were boring and dumb, characters stereotypical and obnoxious.
I had two or three laughs when watching this movie - and I'm grateful for those, but everything else was just clumsy and predictable.David Mitchell's character(Harry) was just silly and irritating.
:) Karl (Robert Webb) was a little bit more likable character - but still quite boring.There are two kinds of people - those who like British comedies and those who don't.
The problem with Magicians, the movie in which David Mitchell and Robert Webb make their attempt to transfer from TV to big screen success (and like so many British comedy duos, fail to do so) is that it feels like no more than an over-glorified sketch from their TV show.That in itself isn't necessarily a criticism - it rolls amiably along, with sufficient in the way of plot and subplot interest to hold the interest - but the scale of its ambition seems to fall short somehow.
Films don't have to be big to work as cinema movies, but they do have to have an awareness that the medium isn't quite the same.
Here, Mitchell and Webb play more or less exactly the same characters they play in Peepshow and, more to the point, one is aware that they are "TV acting" from the very start.But the story is OK, with uncertainty as to whether the beheading which starts the film is accidental or deliberate until the very end, and there are some pleasing supporting characters (Karl's manager, Jessica Hynes(Stephenson)'s glamorous assistant and Andrea Riseborough's office girl are all people whose company I enjoyed.All in all, a failure in its attempt to transfer Mitchell and Webb to cinema (in which they are, at least, in good company), but a noble failure which is not without merit..
I thought that it was mostly really funny, with Mitchell and Webb playing variations on their familiar "Peep Show" persona's.It's very British.
Basically Harry (David Mitchell) and Karl (Robert Webb) used to be two of the most successful magicians on stage, but it was after Harry discovered Karl and his wife (the act's assistant) having an affair, and then accidentally cutting off her head in a guillotine trick they fell apart.
4 years later, they have split and do not speak to each other, Harry is trying to get a job (possibly that could involve his magic skills), and Karl has reinvented himself as a Derren Brown type act, using thought suggestion and medium.
Harry has found a new assistant in the ambitious Linda (Spaced star Jessica Hynes/Stevenson), and Karl has attracted a new naive, almost thick and easy-to-fool Danni (Andrea Riseborough).
Both acts progress to the finals, but Harry still has his doubts of bringing back his guillotine act (and he still thinks of what happened last time), soon, Linda will feel the same, and Karl is struggling to keep convincing people he can do his thing.
The magic tricks are interesting and impressive, there are even some real magicians in the background, there are some good small giggles, but I can see why the critics give it two stars out of five.
Peep show isn't laugh out loud funny and neither is this, yet it puts a smile on your face and perhaps an inside chuckle but hey, it was obviously no blockbuster comedy, but something to see on a quite date or with a couple of friends for those who have already seen Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman 3 or any other major movie.I found it enjoyable, especially the who concept of him having chopped his wife's head off (A little morbid yes, but a good idea.) The gay manager, and the whole 'medium' thing were original 'peep show' humour ideas, and it was good the fact that it was not totally about sex.
(About 10 % wasn't) and we had a nice view of arse.So all in all, a good movie for a rainy day..
Yes I know I'm solely basing that on the fact the two main leads (Robert Webb and David Mitchell) are the two leads from that show but any British person who's familiar with the show knows what I mean.Right its a comedy, lets just get that out there for everyone, its a black comedy based on the relationship between two reasonably famous magicians (Harry and Karl) based in the UK.
Lets think of these characters as the Torvill and Dean of the British magic world (in the film), they are a household name in the UK and pretty well known elsewhere, but mainly they are a home-grown success story that are loved by their fellow countrymen (and women and kids).
because Karl is having an affair with Harry's wife.
This also leads to the accidental death (or was it?) of Harry's wife during a show, which of course virtually destroys their act.
This naturally leads to the pair losing touch and going their own separate ways, until a major magic competition comes along and the pair both enter.OK so, as I've already mentioned this does feel very much like an extended episode of 'Peep Show'.
Aside from the fact you have Webb and Michell, you also have at least three other people that have also starred in the show, this really does make it hard not to look upon the film as an extended special or whatever.
Of course a lot of the appeal here is down to whether or not you actually like the comedy duo of Mitchell and Webb, luckily I do like the duo and have enjoyed all their work thus far.
Again though this does of course cause problems because the comedy feels very familiar, very predictable and like you've seen it all before.
Harry and Karl are more traditional magicians at the start, using the more old fashioned well known tricks, but later Karl moves into mind games mixed with the supernatural trying to elevate his appeal.
This does of course lead to conscious issues for him as he is of course a fake (more of a con artist than Harry), and he cannot bring himself to fool people around when it comes to their actual dead family members.
His struggle is compelling and amusing as deep down he really doesn't want to but he finds himself getting sucked into these situations...mainly because of his fame seeking agent who also fancies him and is actually quite funny.So Webb's character is the stronger of the two, I think, as Mitchell's Harry really does feel exactly the same as Mark Corrigan from 'Peep Show'.
Yes you could say exactly the same about Webb's character of Karl but I feel he displays more of a genuine story arc, he actually conveys some emotion.
Its the other characters that are actually a bit more fun truth be told, Peter Capaldi is solid as the gruff and rude magic competition organiser, where as Steve Edge is easily the best as a controversial magician who simply doesn't think twice about speaking his mind, be it sexist or racist.I guess what I'm trying to say overall is, this film is OK, but it could of been so much better.
I really wanted to like this film so much, I like Mitchell and Webb, their brand of humour is solid, cheeky and at times close to the bar, but this is lacking something.
Mitchell & Webb have tried to take that final step from TV to movie fame like Simon Pegg, Ali G and Steve Coogan before them.But they failed miserably.
Having seen the trailer for this I thought it looked like a really good film but quite frankly your better off sticking with the trailer as the film is extremely dull.The only real highlight for me was Jessica Stephenson playing the assistant (and looking fabulous too!).Mitchell & Webb are funny in sketch format but they couldn't manage to translate that into a movie length format here.The magic looks OK, some of the side characters are mildly amusing but the film falls far of being even semi-funny.Die hard fans of the duo may enjoy this as may fans of Spaced but I really didn't like it.