Product Details

• Actors: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Guy Pearce, Anthony O'Donnell, Ralph Riach, Timothy Spall
• Directors: Gillian Armstrong
• Format: Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Weinstein Company
• DVD Release Date: October 28, 2008
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001CDFY5A
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #33,070 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Death Defying Acts" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Death Defying Acts would more aptly be titled Houdini’s Whirlwind Romance as it focuses less on the famed magician’s skills and more on what kind of secret lovers he may have had. In this historical drama, ravishing con-artists, Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and daughter, Benji (Saoirse Ronan), play two sharp girls ready to take Houdini (Guy Pearce) for a ride. Set in 1920s Scotland, the plot centers on a contest Houdini hosts in Edinburgh to find a psychic medium who can channel his deceased mother. Mary, tired of pick-pocketing to stage fake magic shows, desperately wants Houdini’s $10,000 cash prize and auditions successfully for the role of (real) medium. From there, passions flare up as they negotiate how much of their magic is sheer trickery. Director Gillian Armstrong’s (Little Women) rendition of Houdini’s life depicts him as a regular joe struggling to convince his pragmatic business manager, Sugarman (Timothy Spall), that magic and science are connected. Scenes in which Houdini trains for and then tests his boundaries and skills during famous theater acts, are highly entertaining and well re-created. Scenes in which McGarvie and her daughter read characters for clues to rig their paranormal hoaxes are equally well-done, and Zeta-Jones is gorgeous as a spiritualist. But when Mary and Houdini collide, their definitions of magic turn to mush through Hollywood translation, as something semi-equivocal to faith in love. This unfortunate injection of melodrama in an otherwise smart film cancels out its better parts. Do Houdini fans really want to see him, on screen, grappling with CG angels as he floats, straitjacketed, in his sealed water tank? I doubt it. Still, Death Defying Acts stars Houdini, which automatically makes for some fun. —Trinie Dalton

Product Description

During Harry Houdini's tour of Britain in 1926, the master escapologist enters into a passionate affair with a Scottish psychic.

Stills from Death Defying Acts (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unconvincing chemistry and lacklustre plot let this movie down, November 6, 2008

By	z hayes (plano,texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

"Death Defying Acts" is not a movie biography of Harry Houdini. Instead, it takes a small thread and weaves it into a full-length movie. The story here centers around mother-daughter con artists Mary McGarvie [Catherine Zeta-Jones] and her street smart daughter Benji [Saoirse Ronan whose claim to fame is from the movie Atonement]who barely eke out a living in Edinburgh, Scotland. They put on shows at the local theatre, where they play exotic characters that are able to foretell the future [having done research beforehand on the history of someone in the audience, usually by pickpocketing an object belonging to said person]. When the pair find out that Harry Houdini [Guy Pearce] is coming to Edinburgh and is paying out a 10,000 reward to anyone who can 'divine' his mother's last words written in a letter only known to him, they decide to con him. I'm not sure if the romance part was based on actual events but Houdini was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any psychic who could successfully prove paranormal abilities. The prize however was never collected in real life.

Well, things get complicated when Mary and Houdini get emotionally drawn to each other and the rest of the story deals with the consequences as well as Benji's attempts to get her mother focused on the main prize.

Frankly, I was rather disappointed with this movie - I felt that the mother-daughter chemistry was far from credible, as the pair simply didn't click, and Zeta-Jones even at her 'shabbiest' seemed utterly unconvincing as a down-on-her-luck woman. Her role in this movie definitely lacked 'meatiness' in terms of substance [she dolls up well enough but that's all that she did really well here as there was no real character development]. As to the romance thread in the movie, somehow the leads here lacked chemistry as well and their romance for what's its worth came across as unconvincing.

The one character that I felt was really well-done was Timothy Spall as Houdini's manager. He knows from the beginning that MacGarvie and Benji are con artists and tries to protect Houdini from them and from Houdini himself [sensing the emotional attachment between Houdini and Mary].

The production values are decent enough - I did like the opening scene where Pearce actually performs an underwater stunt. But such outstanding and memorable scenes are few and far between.

On the whole, this is not a bad movie, neither is it a great movie - there are just too many flaws that pull it down into mediocrity. As far as recent period dramas go, I'd recommend movies like The Illusionist, The Prestige and Perfume:Story of a Murderer, for ambience, plot intrigue and thrills.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fairy Tale Riff, November 19, 2008

By	Luminoso (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

If you're looking for a hard facts or a psychologically insightful bio of the great Houdini, then Death Defying Acts will disappoint. DDA is more a tea cake of a film, selecting odds and ends of facts from the life of the master illusionist and mixing them into a sweet, "what-if" confection.

Houdini did, in fact, mount an active campaign to debunk spiritualists and the Mary McGarvie of this film may have been suggested by a real life American psychic, "Margery" - one of Houdini's prime targets. Hardly the struggling single mother of this film, Margery Crandon was the popular wife of a Boston physician. DDA is full of similar juxtapositions of fact with fantasy that make for a gently told story which I found pleasant to watch, but neither gripping, nor illuminating.

Within the context of the script, the principal actors are excellent, but as I write this I can't help imagining what it would be like to see Pearce, Jones, Ronan and Spall in a "real-life" version of the Houdini story. One that probed the core of a man desperate for recognition, redemption, and resurrection. All four of these actors certainly have the juice for a film with that kind of edge!

Technically, DDA is uneven. In some instances the selection of locations and dressing of the sets is an early 20th Century enthusiasts dream. In others, the sets looked rather economically built. Beautifully filmed and edited crowd scenes are interspersed with some truly dull tracking shots and unimaginative cutting.

All that said... I enjoyed the film for what it was - a fantasy - and I'll watch it again. Probably several more times. So, if you're in need of an escape or a sweet taste of the guilty pleasure variety, this film fits that category perfectly!

3.0 out of 5 stars No, This Is Not "The Prestige": This Is More About Houdini's Romance, December 19, 2009

By	Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

In spite of its intriguing title and central character, namely Harry Houdini, "Death Defying Acts" is not exactly about mystery or suspense. So don't expect big surprises of "The Prestige." "Death Defying Acts," directed by Gillian Armstrong (Wynona Rider's "Little Women" and "Oscar and Lucinda"), is more about the romance between Houdini (Guy Pearce) and a con artist Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who passes for a spiritual medium.

The film is set in 1926, during the British tour of the great magician and debunker, and Houdini offers 10,000 dollars to anyone who can reveal the dying words of her mother. Impoverished Mary (living in a cemetery) manages to charm her way into Harry Houdini's life, first disguising herself as a hotel maid, looking for the clues as to the right answer, but she finds herself attracted to Houdini himself (though he is married).

The film, it is certain, has a very interesting story, plus the beautifully shot cinematography (part shot in London and Edinburgh on location). Gillian Armstrong even recreates some of Houdini's famous acts (like the straightjacket and the water torture) and these scenes are convincing, thanks to Guy Pearce's fine acting. Still, the story is not fully fleshed out (the $10,000 part is half forgotten until the climax) and certain part of the film (the mother-son / mother-daughter relations, especially) need to be explored more so that the film's denouement, interesting as it is, could be more powerful.

The two leads are not bad (though I think they are miscast), and always reliable Timothy Spall turns in solid acting as Sugarman, Houdini's concerned manager, but it is delightful Saoirse Ronan who really shines in "Death Defying Acts" as Benji, loving daughter of Mary, providing energy and power this film really needs. A bit of a prankster and love to be unpredictable, Saoirse Ronan's character is more interesting than any other characters in this film. Why didn't director Gillian Armstrong use her character more is a greater mystery than "Death Defying Acts" itself.