The Great Buck Howard

• John Malkovich: Buck Howard
• Colin Hanks: Troy Gable
• Tom Hanks: Troy's father
• Emily Blunt: Valerie Brennan
• Ricky Jay: Gil Bellamy
• Steve Zahn: Kenny
• Debra Monk: Doreen
• Adam Scott Alan Berkman
• Patrick Fischler: Michael Perry
• Wallace Langham: Dan Green

The Great Buck Howard (AKA The Great Buck Howard) is an American comedy film from 2008 by Sean McGinly (writer and director) with Colin Hanks and John Malkovich in the lead roles.

Action

Troy Gable has begun at the request of his father two years ago, to study law. Now he finally realizes that he is dissatisfied. He dropped out of engineering to find his dream. However, his father says he initially unaware of his decision. Secretly, he hopes to become a writer. He sees, however, very quickly confronted with the fact that he can not live on it and needs a job to pay his bills. Here attention is drawn to the display of the magician Buck Howard, who is seeking a tour manager. Troy gets the job.

Troy Buck Howard accompanied on his tour of small towns across the country. In the grand finale of his show Buck Howard asks the audience every time with his evening Gage to hide an envelope somewhere in the hall while he is staying with his team in the dressing room. If he then does not find the money, he waives the fee for this evening.

In the past, Buck Howard is repeatedly occurred on the Tonight Show and other television shows. Meanwhile, he gets only very rarely television appearances. To get back more into the limelight, he plans to show off a unique new trick in Cincinnati. The publicist Valerie Brennan organized the press and media appearances Bucks on the eve of great events. Although Valerie has a boyfriend, Troy and Valerie come closer and the two spend the night together.

For his grand entrance Buck Howard plans to put 300 people simultaneously in hypnosis. Although his trick works great, leaves the press present because of a traffic accident by Jerry Springer the event. Its success is characterized documented by any single camera. After the show, Buck suddenly collapses and has to be revived. The collapse brings Howard unexpectedly but then the media attention, to which he had hoped with his big trick. In the following time he is invited in a number of television shows. However, the scheduled appearance on The Tonight Show can not take place in the short term, because the time has expired for the live broadcast.

As a result, Buck Howard receives a regular show in Las Vegas. As a final trick he 's still looking for the evening Gage. One evening, however can not Buck find the hidden money from the audience in the hall. Troy then terminated his work for Buck, goes to Los Angeles and wants to be a writer. With the help of Valerie he gets a job as a writer for the television broadcast of Jonathan Finerman.

Buck Howard finished his regular show in Las Vegas and goes back on tour through the small towns. Troy visited him at a gig and see the show for the first time as a spectator at. Buck finds the end of his show is still the money and it remains unclear to the end, how the trick works.

Reviews

Justin Chang praised in the journal Variety January 22, 2008, the performance by John Malkovich, the " amusing " the Diva Attitude of embodied character performing. However, was well known to the acting concept of a film that put the relationship between two people at the center problem. Sentimentality take over the satire upper hand. The film could still expect a wide audience from different generations.

Background

The character of Buck Howard largely corresponds to the actually existing mentalist The Amazing Kreskin. The writer-director Sean McGinly was for a time the road manager and used Kreskins history as a template for his main character.

The actor Gary Coleman, Michael Winslow and Jack Carter each have brief appearances in which they play themselves. Other guest appearances have Takei George and several TV hosts such as Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, and Jon Stewart.

The film was shot in Las Vegas City, Los Angeles and New York. Its premiere was held at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2008. Subsequently, the film was shown at other film festivals and from 20 March 2009 a few American cinema. In Germany the film was not in the cinema. At the box office, the film grossed worldwide a mere 0.9 million U.S. dollars.