The Great Buck Howard - Do You Believe In Magic?

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Colin Hanks is Troy Gabel, a law school dropout with dreams of being a writer.  He’s adrift in the world when stumbles upon a newspaper help wanted ad in search of a personal assistant/road manager for a “celebrity”.  He replies to the ad and is interviewed by The Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich).  Troy tries to delicately navigate the job interview since he’s never heard of the guy.  Buck Howard, clearly modeled on The Amazing Kreskin, is a fading star; a relic from a bygone era.  He’s a magician, no, scratch that, a mentalist that has appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 61 times…and he has no qualms about telling you that.  He’s degree of self-importance is in converse proportion to his self-awareness.  He has no idea that his star is falling, let alone fallen, in spite of the 3^rd rate/half-full venues that he’s been relegated to playing.  In Buck Howard's world, everyone still knows his name and they want nothing more in life than an autographed picture.

Howard is demanding and Troy has to learn quickly.  He’s required to anticipate Howard’s every need, direct his stage show and assuage his wounded ego whenever reality rudely intrudes.  But for all of Howard’s delusional beliefs about his career, he’s actually quite good.  True, his show is outdated.  It features corny jokes and sappy musical interludes.  But between all that, he performs stunning tricks.  His act always closes with his signature move: he has the audience hide that evening’s fee somewhere in the auditorium.  If he can’t find the money, he goes unpaid.  The trick is legendary and, in over 5,000 attempts, he’s never failed.

The Great Buck Howard is wonderful little film about an often unseen side of show business.  We’ve seen movies that show us falling stars but we don’t often see movies that show us where they fall.  As Troy and Howard traverse the forgotten venues of America’s tertiary markets we see what must be the mind numbing sameness of it all.  He plays towns that rarely, if ever, see celebrities.  And, as sad as Howard is, it’s even sadder to see how excited these people are to meet him.

Hanks gives a solid performance.  Granted, he’s not asked to do much besides be likeable but he succeeds.  Malkovich is wonderful as Howard.  He truly encapsulates a man in the twilight of his career; showing us a complicated figure that longs for his glory days but still loves his craft. 

But, at its heart, it’s not a sad film.  While it travels in sad circles, it’s actually a charming little movie.  It’s easy to look at Howard at see a once well known man greatly diminished.  But that’s not the message of the film.  Howard does what he loves, every night, and he gets paid for it.  There’s a running gag in the movie where people keep asking Troy if Howard is gay.  We never really get an answer to that question but we don’t need one.  He loves entertaining, he doesn’t need (or want) anything else. 

The Great Buck Howard is not a big film, but it is a delightful one.  While it mines the shallow end of the celebrity pool for laughs, the filmmakers clearly have a deep and abiding affection for these characters and the real life counterparts upon which they are based.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Howard's End and 1 being Howard The Duck, The Great Buck Howard gets an 8.

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