I love this movie so much

Strong and Moving!

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

best movie i've ever seen.

The only reason I am not giving it 10 out of 10 is that I got a couple of the characters mixed up at one point (the sequences are shown out of chronological order). It is also true, as other reviewers have pointed out, that the film gets a bit talky in the middle section. It is as if Ryan gets a bit seduced by his own script-writing. Well, it is hard to cut out writing.To my mind, the strength of this movie is the characterisation. Scott Ryan is a marvelous character - the antithesis of the wine-drinking, PC, environmentally-conscious middle-class intellectual elite of the Howard years. His accent is broad, he likes his 'chewy' and his 'Big M'. I was transfixed by the way he drank his McCoffee all up while seeming to wince with every mouthful.I don't want to make this a long boring review so I'll just make some final last observations: the crew double as cast in most if not all cases; stay for the end of "I'll Be Gone" by Spectrum and one last out-take after the credits are finished; Ryan has clearly been influenced by *Pulp Fiction* (and why not?).

Scott Ryan has fashioned a spectacular debut film on literally the sniff of a wet rag. The Magician displays a level of ingenuity and confidence rarely seen in the Australian film industry. This film certainly makes a mockery of all the crud that has been churned out lately with significant AFC funding.The Magician is a very funny mockumentary about a hit-man, Ray. The film is really nothing more than a series of vignettes which show Ray carrying out his occupation and chatting with the documentary filmmaker, Max. This film really should have been an exercise in boredom. However, The Magician manages to be one of the most entertaining Australian films to see the light of day in a long time, almost entirely due to the efforts of writer/director/actor Scott Ryan. Scott Ryan is mesmerising as Ray. This character manages to be abhorrent, hilarious and strangely moral without ever slipping into parody. As well as making a convincing hit-man, Ray is also the perfect mouthpiece for Ryan's witty jabs at everything from the legalisation of drugs, to the prevalence of gays in Hollywood.One of the most enjoyable aspects of the film for me is that it is so Australian-centric, for want of a better word. This film isn't trying to imitate Tarantino (like ever other debut film featuring a gun fight), nor is it making a desperate grab for international attention, like most of the dreary "quirky" (i.e. crap) comedies receiving funding from the government. The result is a highly distinctive film that feels completely original.There are a couple of minor problems with the film that most likely stem from the tiny budget. With the exception of Scott Ryan's fine performance, and perhaps Ben Walker's engaging turn as Tony, the other actors are clearly amateurs. The character of Max is also somewhat perplexing. There is no explanation for his rather amoral and perversely non-judgemental approach to documentary film-making. The extensive use of Max's hand-held camera is also somewhat disorientating to begin with. My biggest complaint would have to be the film's ending, which seems forced and came around much too quickly.I'm glad that films like The Magician can still get made in this country and I hope that it works as a calling card for the outrageously talented Scott Ryan. I'm really perplexed why it (or "Wolf Creek" for that matter) didn't win a swag of AFI awards. I guess that both films made the mistake of actually being entertaining.

In a mock/documentary style, we travel around with Ray Shoesmith, a hit-man in the city Melbourne. After his latest hit on an unsuspecting man shot in his garage, Ray moves on to his next person. Tony is a drug dealer, who Ray's friend Edna has mixed up with. Grabbing Tony off the streets, throwing him into the car, drives off to the middle of nowhere for Tony to dig his grave. Jumping from Tony's ordeal, to other hits and Ray's rocky friendship with Edna, we start to see who this enigma of a man is.In recent times, films have been taking that step of raising life mundane aspects into a form of entertainment. The magician runs off a series of non-interconnected conversation, small banter, that ultimately has no end game; it doesn't bring much insight into the people we are watching. Gay actors, what car would you most want to own, would you eat your own excrement, Mardi Gras, etc. The dark humor that is entwined into these conversation stop The Magician failing into redundancy. Tiffs over how a dead man walking digs his own grave is nothing short of devilish. The problem with the conversations is they lack a lot of consistency. While many grab your attention, other fall flat and become mundane; much to the subject matter.For a hit-man, Ray is one unorthodox professional. Writer/director Scott Ryan spins the image of a hit-man from a suave, professional assign to an everyday Australian who you wouldn't pick from the crowd. Ryan never portrays Ray as an antihero, nor tries to make you feel sympathy for him, as he is an amoral person, in a amoral profession.Also taking the lead as Ray, Scott Ryan brings so much charisma to Ray. There is such a presence he holds, you don't want to miss a word he says. At times you are just wondering what is going on in his head. Ben Walker as Tony and Nathaniel Lindsay as Edna both give solid performances; both being amateur actors.The Magician does have it flaws, though they are overcome by some very interesting conversations with one strange man.

The movie began with hand-held shots of a man sitting in his darkened car explaining to the camera that he's going to follow the bloke into the garage and then "give him the good news", and that he does.The Magician is a movie written, directed, produced and edited by Scott Ryan, oh, and he plays the lead as well. Reportedly he did so on a budget of only 3,000 Australian dollars and in only ten days, although reports suggest that he spent something in the region of five years writing it! It's an interesting tale of a filmmaker who makes a documentary of hit-man Ray Shoesmith and a few of his "marks", and that's really about all there is to it. Yet it turns out to be rather fun.It begins darkly and the latter half presents a more sobering tone, but the mid section is more about clever dialogue which, at times, can be extremely funny. Scenes such as the bet between the film maker and Ray if Clint Eastwood was in The Dirty Dozen, where Ray opens the boot to get the mark to list the actors are absurdly funny, and this is a pattern which follows for most of the lighter middle part of the film. However the darker sections are the more intriguing, the filming of the man digging his own grave in the middle of nowhere, Ray sitting explaining his planned hit in the darkened car, these scenes are thoroughly absorbing.It's in these darker scenes that I find the comic moments work the best, when the film maker and hit-man are chatting about some stupidly funny topic and then he turns to kill someone. The contrast of the normality of the situation and the friendship and banter that these two characters have built up with the inhuman, violent acts of the hit-man show the complexity of the character and the fact that he is normal just with a very unusual side! There's even the compelling caring side of Ray that appears when he tries to help the film maker get his stolen gear back. Listening to his somewhat late bout of morality as he pleads not to hurt the thief is actually very amusing, particularly Ray's face and calm manner when he returns after asking politely and being told to get lost. This scene, and Ray's reaction is just superb.Ryan takes over the movie and steals the show wonderfully, he's utterly engaging in front of the camera, and his slow, drawn out, casual style gives a natural performance. Although it's fair to say that at the beginning of the movie it takes a little while for both he, and the audience, to get into the stride of the movie.For me the natural side of the movie is pulled back by the performance of Massimiliano Andrighettowho plays the film maker, Max "Massimo" Totti. Considering the situation and the acts he's witnessing Ray commit, I found it hard to accept his open and often argumentative approach with the character. It didn't sit well for me with the image of a hit-man. I forever thought that Ray's patience would break and he would stop idle arguing with him to either kill him or beat him to shut up, yet perhaps this shows the measured and calculating Ray. Yet I could just not grapple with the idea that the film maker would be so fearless.This movie is about the superbly written dialogue and the very well acted Ray. However it tries to be a bit too comic for my tastes, and with the darker element attached it seems to be confused as to what story it really wants to tell. Very reminiscent of the banter and connection in the film Chopper, yet for me that pulled off the mixture of comic and darkness far better. Still entertaining though, and some of the dialogue will stay with you after you leave the cinema. Dark humour indeed.