Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Great latter day film noir/ mystery flick has an arrogant special effects man Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) in NYC being hired by the FBI to fake the death of a mob informant. Things don't go according to anyone's plans.There's murder on the rain-soaked streets of Manhattan, trenchcoats, false moustaches, mistaken identities, a good looking sacrificial lamb (Diane Venora) , hard-headed stooge cops hilarious in their incompetency, and a great twist ending. Film also has a bit of a 'behind the scenes' feel to it, as we see some of the creation of the makeup and some of the effects.Screenplay leaves a bunch of open ends and unanswered questions, but that is part of its appeal, its mysteries are never solved. Yet, the film is very well written, with the screenwriters employing the theory of Checkhov's Gun many times throughout: the rain-soaked streets in the opening scene set up the later rainstorm, which was necessary to get Tyler in the doorway and undetected by the cops trying to kill him; Tyler's latex wrist makeup in an early scene is used to his great effect at the film's end; we are discretely shown Mason's earpiece several times early on, which also plays a role in the film's climax; DeFranco's pacemaker, and on and on. A great little obscure thriller, with a great fight between Tyler and gunman in the apartment one of the highlights. Another highlight is Tyler's burglar alarm.

preppy-3 Movie special effects man Roland Tyler (Bryan Brown) is hired by two Justice Dept agents (Cliff DeYoung and Mason Adams) to fake the killing of a mobster (Jerry Orbach!) who's in the Witness Protection Program. He agrees but the mobster is actually killed by mistake. Soon Roland has the FBI AND the NY police led by Lt. Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) on his tail...but he has plenty of special effects (F/X) tricks to fool them.If you stop to think about this for one moment the plot has HUGE loopholes and some of the F/X Roland pulls off could never happen in real life...but the movie is SO entertaining you won't care! It moves quickly with a particularly vicious fight scene and a long exciting car chase thrown in. The F/X Roland uses to fight back are a lot of fun if totally implausible. The acting is (with one exception) very good. Bryan is handsome, muscular and lots of fun in his role. His Australian accent somehow helps. Dennehy plays his umpteenth cop role but he's still very good and lots of fun. DeYoung and Adams are great as the slimy villains and Orbach plays a role you've never seen him playing before--a villain! The only debit--Martha Gehman as Roland's assistant. The woman is a TERRIBLE actress and basically shrieks all her lines. Still this is a fun, quick little thriller well worth catching. I give it an 8.

Celticnationalist F/X is one of the few Movies from the 80's that I remember because of it's inventive premise.It Stars Aussie Actor Bryan Brown (An actor who never really made it to the big-time) who plays Special FX Expert Rollie Tyler who works on various Low Budget Slashers and becomes well known to the Department of Justice which hires him to perform a fake assassination of a Gangster on the Witness protection Program (Law & Order's late Jerry Orbach)...But things very quickly become complicated as Tyler finds he's being double crossed by the very people who hired him (Mason Adams & Cliff De Young)Co-Starring Brian Dennehy as the veteran cop Leo McCarthy who tries to find out who killed who and why.It was a minor hit on it's original release back in '86 and was followed by a Sequel in '91 and a TV series from '96-'98.***1/2 out of *****

gmartin-2 Given the glowing reviews for this movie, I am surprised at how much I disliked it. The movie has more than its share of glaring plot holes— some reviewers warn against examining all plot elements too closely. This is an indulgence I will (reluctantly) respect since the movie, in my opinion, has a much more serious and grating problem.What I found off-putting about the movie is that, except for Diane Venora's brief role as Bryan Brown's girlfriend, there is not a sympathetic character to be found anywhere. Brown's character—the heart of the story after all-- starts off a likable "everyman." but becomes increasingly less so as the story proceeds until he devolves into a cold-blooded killer, indifferent to the carnage he is creating around him—- not every federal agent has to die-- and corrupt, too. In the van chase scene, he is oblivious to the public menace he is causing in using his f/x tricks. (This could have been mitigated with a single line of dialog or a look of concern; but, never mind.) I wanted to like Martha Gehman's character as Brown's assistant, but she lost me with her gleeful "I wish I could have seen the look on his face" when she tricked the pursuing detective into thinking he had run over a woman. Finally, the transformation of Brian Dennehy's character into just another corrupt cop left me with a distinct sour taste at the end of the movie. After everything is said and done, for Brown and Dennehy it's all about the money. Even Schwarzenegger was never this cynical in his movies. The last thing that bothered me is that I always presumed movie special effects were to keep the actors safe. Since here they are used to kill, it seems like a betrayal of their purpose.On the positive side, I had no problems with the casting or acting. Maybe things improved in f/x 2. I can only hope.