![]() ![]() I’m not gonna be like him,” or his wife’s exclamation, “You may not be afraid of death, but you’re afraid of life!”ĭitto for the direction, which not only telegraphs the importance of Houdini letting people punch him - showing off his powerful stomach muscles - but zooms into his body, repeatedly, to illustrate the effects. Still, the dialogue is too often brutally on the nose, including lines like the magician saying his father “was nobody. That prompts an unexpected run-in with Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose wife claimed she could patch Houdini in to the great beyond.Īdmittedly, there are some interesting moments detailing how Houdini achieved his spectacular illusions and escapes. ![]() The mini’s second half, meanwhile (after the most anticlimactic opening-night cliffhanger imaginable), focuses squarely on Houdini’s determination to contact his beloved and departed mother (Eszter Onodi), leading to the war on mediums he conducted, branding them psychics and frauds. Along the way, the project takes detours to chronicle some of the other historical figures Houdini encountered, which included using that access to spy on behalf of the Americans and British before World War I. ![]() Leaping about in time, the movie chronicles Harry Houdini’s upbringing as Ehrich Weiss, a Jewish immigrant from Budapest (where, incidentally, the miniseries was shot), parlaying his early love of magic into a stage act that eventually made him one of the most recognizable figures of his era. Nor is there much supporting help for Brody, with Kristen Connolly coming off as a nag playing Houdini’s perpetually concerned wife, Evan Jones as the architect behind his many tricks, and practically no one else registering. ![]()
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