The Great Buck Howard - DVD

Movie: Actually Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) should make a career as a lawyer, if it were up to his father (Tom Hanks). But Troy can't stand the tedium of law school and prefers to pursue his dream of making a career in show business. But before he can make it there as a screenwriter, he has to get a foothold in the business. A job as personal assistant to the once extremely popular mental magician Buck Howard (John Malkovich) sounds like the ideal entry-level job. But soon Troy has to realize that the eccentric and extremely moody artist no longer has the popularity he thinks he has. And working for a man who is seen as a laughing stock in the industry isn't likely to help Troy's future either. But then Buck plans a spectacular comeback act that could change everything - and at first everything looks as if the plan could work out...

Long has it taken, but now the wonderful comedy The Great Buck Howard has finally made it to Germany. Director Sean McGinly, who here very freely processes his experiences as an assistant for the Amazing Keskin, has staged with an extremely light hand an amusing look behind the scenes of show business, which scores with quirky and endearing characters, witty dialogues and great actors. John Malkovich in particular stands out here. Once a celebrated mental magician, the man with the unique way of shaking hands with his counterpart is seemingly stuck in the late 70s. His show is still the same, his hairstyle and his outfits too. But unfortunately, so is his audience, which is why he primarily plays to older people in small, sparsely packed halls.

Buck Howard is a diva of a particularly bad kind. He loves his audience, but anyone who doesn't follow his precise instructions gets to feel Buck's wrath in a rather unseemly way. This artist is not really likeable. However, thanks to John Malkovich, it is almost impossible for the viewer not to love Howard and thus understand why he always manages to captivate his audience, small as it may be.

However, The Great Buck Howard is primarily the story of Troy, very sympathetically portrayed by Colin Hanks, whose famous father Tom produced the film and also appears in a small guest role as Troy's father. Of course, a little romance is not to be missed, coming into Troy's life in the form of the once again wonderful Emily Blunt. The chemistry between Colin Hanks and Emily Blunt is extremely coherent and you can see exactly at which moment the two fall in love with each other.

But also smaller supporting roles, which are cast among others with Steve Zahn with a nasty 70s porn beard, contribute to the fact that the film is filled with wonderful character moments and very well working situation comedy. Adding to the good vibes, however, are the good set pieces, which are especially positive in Buck Howard's completely unglamorous performance locations.

The Great Buck Howard is a nice little US comedy that scores points for its good-humoured staging and charismatic cast. A home cinema premiere that proves once again that it's not proof of inferior quality if a film doesn't make it to cinemas but is released straight to DVD. Absolutely recommendable!

Picture + Sound: Technically, the implementation of image and sound is on a good level. The overall sharpness can be seen as well as the coherent color scheme and the good representation of details. The sound is primarily dominated by the dialogues and the film music, here and there, however, smaller ambient noises provide a little dynamic in the tonal events. Good!

Extras: The DVD has some nice extras to offer. Starting off is an unfortunately unsubtitled audio commentary by director Sean McGinly and lead actor Colin Hanks, in which Ginly talks about, among other things, how much of the film's story is borrowed from his own experiences as an assistant to the Amazing Kreskin. There's then a small but very watchable documentary of its own about Kreskin (approx. 5 mins), which is supplemented by a behind-the-scenes look (approx. 9 mins), dropped scenes (approx. 3 mins) and outtakes (approx. 3 mins). There are also 9 minutes of extended scenes, which are longer versions of Buck Howard`s TV appearances on The Daily Show and Conan O`Brien`s Late Night Show, among others. Good!

Conclusion: The Great Buck Howard is an amusing comedy that is carried not only by the nice story but also by the great cast, most notably John Malkovich. The DVD is technically on a good level and the nice bonus material throws light on the real background of the story among other things. For lovers of smaller American comedies: absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp