F/X 2

A five-years-after-the-fact sequel nobody was calling for, and whose financial fate was preordained.  Yet F/X 2 is not without interest, as indicated by its major credits: future Hollywood heavyweight Bill Condon (GODS AND MONSTERS) as screenwriter and the Australian thriller specialist Richard Franklin (PSYCHO II) as director.

F/X, for the record, was an efficient 1986 thriller about Tyler, a special effects artist played by Bryan Brown, contracted to use his F/X skills to simulate an actual killing, while Bryan Dennehy as Leo, a rogue cop, is gradually drawn into the fray.  Brown and Dennehy returned for this 1991 sequel, as did producer Dodi Fayed (who’s best known for his paparazzi-incited death, together with his mistress Lady Diana, in 1997), although F/X’s director Robert Mandel (of SCHOOL TIES) and screenwriters Robert T. Megginson and Gregory Fleeman sat out F/X 2 (nor did they contribute to the F/X: THE SERIES TV spin-off that ran from 1996-98).

Franklin and Condon announce their attitude toward the material in the opening scene.  As in F/X, F/X 2 opens with a violent action sequence that’s revealed to be part of a movie being filmed; in F/X that sequence consisted of a nut on a machine gun rampage in a crowded restaurant, whereas here the equivalent sequence involves a car crash and a skimpily dressed woman who reveals herself to be a male cyborg that shoots missiles from its arms.

This movie-within-a-movie, unlike the one seen in F/X, doesn’t count Tyler among its crew.  He’s retired from the business and now works as a toy maker, having created a mechanical clown that imitates his movements—and comes in handy at various opportune points in the film.

Leo also returns, but sits things out until 40 minutes in.  It’s then that Tyler discovers he’s once again been set up, this time by a cop colleague who contracted Tyler to lure a killer via an elaborate woman-in-the-shower ruse, only to have an unidentified man turn up and murder both Tyler’s cop pal and the killer they were trying to nab.  The gambit’s overseer claims that everything went fine, which arouses Tyler’s suspicions.  He’s further put off when a guy turns up at his apartment trying to kill him.  Luckily Leo shows up just in time to rescue Tyler, and the two launch their own haphazard investigation into the murder.

F/X, silly though it was, made some efforts toward logic and plausibility, things largely jettisoned by Franklin and Condon.  They did, however, have fun with the material, providing a breezy film that’s unapologetically movie-mad, with the opening scene paying homage to the iconic prologue of THE NAKED KISS (1964) and a mid-film examination of incriminating video footage referencing BLOW-UP (1966).  Another (possibly unintentional) reference is to MACGYVER, in the film’s best scene, a supermarket set chase in which Tyler finds ingenious ways to outwit his pursuer by grabbing household items off the shelves and using them to create lethal contraptions (although I’m not sure why the back room is locked at the beginning of the scene and then, after Tyler has sufficiently distracted his foe, suddenly found to be unlocked).

That sense of anarchic joy is infectious, provided the viewer isn’t too insistent about things making sense.  The approach fits Condon quite well, and seems quite refreshing in light of the many self-important films he’s since turned out (such as KINSEY and DREAMGIRLS).  Franklin also benefits from the fun-based aesthetic; F/X 2 isn’t the most polished or visually striking of his films (with a generic Lalo Schifrin score that’s not worth discussing), but the pic contains so much dumb fun it’s hard to complain overmuch.

Vital Statistics

F/X 2
Orion Pictures

Director: Richard Franklin
Producers: Dodi Fayed, Jack Wiener
Screenplay: Bill Condon
Cinematography: Victor J. Kemper
Editing: Andrew London
Cast: Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Rachel Ticotin, Joanna Gleason, Philip Bosco, Kevin J. O’Connor, Tom Mason, Dominic Zampronga, Jossie DeGuzman, John Walsh, Peter Boretski, Lisa Fallon, Lee Broker, Philip Akin, Tony De Santis, Ross Petty, Dee McCafferty, Jeri Craden, Karie Stone