{"id":2706,"date":"2024-08-24T13:20:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T13:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2706"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:24:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:24:51","slug":"f-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/24\/f-x\/","title":{"rendered":"F\/X"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"F\/X<\/strong> (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Mandel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gregory Fleeman and Robert T. Megginson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bill Conti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Miroslav Ondricek\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 7, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Diane Venora, Cliff DeYoung, Mason Adams, Jerry Orbach, Joe Grifasi, Martha Gehman, Trey Wilson, Tom Noonan, Roscoe Orman, Josie de Guzman.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $20.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0To this day, the action-thriller\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0still amazes me. Back (WAY back!) before movies were defined by their budget, there was this concept called \u201coriginality\u201d. Maybe you\u2019ve heard of it? The premise of\u00a0F\/X\u00a0<\/strong>(Hollywood-speak for special effects), which only cost $10 million to make, is very clever. A movie special effects artist is hired by the government to help fake the assassination of a mob informant only to find his own life in danger after the job is done.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I first saw the trailer for\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0before Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins in October \u201985 and knew instantly it would be a winner. I saw it opening weekend (Sunday Feb. 9, 1pm show) at the old Pilgrim Gardens Theater (Drexel Hill, PA) and it blew my mind. At the time, I subsisted on a fairly steady diet of action movies where the hero typically made his point with fists, guns, knives, swords and explosives. I still love movies like that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>, the hero, special effects guy Rollie Tyler, relies on his unique skills to survive the predicament in which he finds himself. He\u2019s played by Bryan Brown (Breaker Morant), an Australian actor with whom I wasn\u2019t familiar. He does a great job in the role. He\u2019s believable precisely because of his unfamiliarity with American audiences. A movie like\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0works best with somebody like Brown in the lead. I doubt Stallone or Schwarzenegger could have pulled it off as well and I LOVE those guys.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tyler, who works primarily on low budget B-level horror movies like \u201cFade to Black\u201d and \u201cI Dismember Mama\u201d, is approached by Justice Department agent Lipton (DeYoung, Shock Treatment) with an interesting offer. He wants to pay Tyler $30,000 to utilize his skills to help stage the fake murder of mobster Nicholas DeFranco (Orbach, Law & Order). He\u2019s all set to testify against the Mafia after which he will go into witness protection. In order to ensure everything goes as planned, Lipton\u2019s boss (Adams, The Final Conflict) asks Tyler to be the \u201cassassin\u201d who publicly kills DeFranco. It goes flawlessly. Or so he thinks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Tyler makes his getaway, the first of several attempts on his life takes place. Somebody wants him dead, but who? After his actress girlfriend Ellen (Venora, Heat) is killed by a bullet meant for him, Tyler, with the help of his plucky young assistant Andy (Gehman, The Flamingo Kid), decides to use his special set of skills to weed out the guilty party(ies).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, veteran New York detective Leo McCarthy (Dennehy, First Blood) is called in to investigate the girlfriend\u2019s murder. As it so happens, he\u2019s been trying to put DeFranco away for several years and is understandably peeved when his boss (Orman, Sesame Street) assigns the mobster\u2019s murder to another detective (Wilson, Raising Arizona).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0has been in circulation for 30 years, I don\u2019t want to give away too much. I don\u2019t want to ruin it for young film lovers who haven\u2019t yet seen it. It has a few neat surprises up its sleeve. I\u2019ve watched it many times over the years and still enjoy it even though I know what\u2019s coming. Much of that stems from a clever and intelligent screenplay by Gregory Fleeman and Robert T. Megginson. Director Robert Mandel (Big Shots, The Substitute) does a crack job keeping things moving.\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0has a few well-orchestrated action scenes; in particular, a car chase involving the truck Tyler and his assistant work out of.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is especially good. Brown makes no attempt to hide his Australian accent, a move that ultimately works in his favor. Non-Americans aren\u2019t prone to automatically trust the US government in all matters so it\u2019s easy to understand his distrust of Lipton and his boss. Dennehy is dependable as ever as the only NYPD cop interested in figuring out what\u2019s really going on. He\u2019s one of my favorite character actors; it always great to see him in action. DeYoung is sufficiently shady as a government agent who may not be on the up-and-up. Broadway actor Orbach is terrific as DeFranco, a well-tailored creep. Gehman brings spunk and pluck as Tyler\u2019s right-hand woman. Joe Grifasi (The Pope of Greenwich Village) contributes a nice supporting turn as McCarthy\u2019s befuddled partner.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Of course, the best part of\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0is the tricks Tyler uses against his opponents. Who needs a gun when you have a kit filled with the tools of the F\/X trade? The closing song, \u201cJust an Illusion\u201d by Imagination, is a great way to end things. As a special added touch, the closing credits include outtake shots of the principal players. It\u2019s sort of like stage actors coming out to take their final bows at the end of a performance.\u00a0F\/X<\/strong>\u00a0is one of my favorite movies of the 80s. It\u2019s clever, suspenseful, exciting, funny and fun. Just strap in and enjoy the ride.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

F\/X (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Mandel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gregory Fleeman and Robert T. Megginson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bill Conti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Miroslav Ondricek\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 7, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Diane Venora, Cliff DeYoung, Mason Adams, Jerry Orbach, Joe Grifasi, Martha Gehman, Trey Wilson, Tom Noonan, Roscoe Orman, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/FX-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3655,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions\/3655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}