rainmonkey Review of Death Defying Acts

Death Defying Acts (2007)

A barely contained piece of spiritualist propaganda

[3/10 · 14 September 2007]

I just watched this film at its premier at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. While I enjoyed the acting abilities of Catherine Zeta Jones, Guy Pierce and especially the young Saoirse Ronan, the script was such an affront to the true Houdini that I almost gagged. In fact, I spoke up and asked a very uncomfortable question to Gillian Armstrong during the question and answer period. "How do you answer to the legacy of who Harry Houdini really was - a skeptic who spent his life energy successfully debunking anyone offering supernatural claims... inspiring such people as the great James Randi, who, like Harry, offered large sums of money to anyone who could prove, under scientific conditions, the existence of supernatural phenomena. To this date, the money has not been claimed... Harry championed the rational, scientific approach to studying phenomena. How do you justify the blatant spirituality shown in your movie?" The answer was vague. Ms. Armstrong pointed out that if Harry was such a skeptic, why was he so obsessed with the afterlife. Moreover, at the end of the film, there is a title card that describes the séances that have tried to contact Harry after his death, all with no success. Okay. Right. People are going to remember a few lines of text and NOT the angels swimming through the water, the visions of Harry's dead mother as he hung upside down in the Chinese Water Torture tank... the lights going out as little Benji writhed on the floor speaking perfect, fluent German, the "psychic connection" Mary had to Harry the moment he died (incidentally, Harry died at Detroit's Grace Hospital of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix at 1:26 p.m. on October 31 - Halloween - in Room 401, 1926, at the age of 52! Does Guy Pierce look 52 to you?). Ms. Armstong even did an informal poll of the audience - she asked "How many people here think that Benji was really channeling Harry's mother?" To which about half the audience raised their hands. Yikes. Do these people also believe in the tooth fairy? Yes, this is a Hollywood fantasy. However, it treats Harry as an unfaithful, vision-seeing pseudo psychic. It is an affront to everything Harry stood for. As a piece of fiction, it is enjoyable. If you can stomach its historical desecrations, you will enjoy wonderful acting and great cinematography. If you know anything about who Houdini was or value what he stood for, you will be frustrated by this blatant attempt to make our world even more demon-haunted than it already is.