Hard Luck Buck

John Malkovich in The Great Buck Howard

A few weeks ago in this space, I wondered if there was a leading American actor more willing and able to make an audience uncomfortable than Nicolas Cage. John Malkovich occupies a similar place in the movie star pantheon: I can’t think of another actor who has made it to leading man status by playing only dislikeable characters.

With his hard eyes, severe skull, and menacing smile, it’s certainly something he’s good at. And while I don’t claim to have seem every film he’s made, I can’t recall a one where he made any attempt to enlist the audience’s sympathy.

The closet thing he ever did to a romantic comedy, 1987’s Making Mr. Right, was entirely premised on his coldness. (He played a scientist who invented a robot version of himself that was better with the public.) He was one of the Three Musketeers in 1997’s The Man in the Iron Mask, but I don’t remember him in the film, so perhaps a lack of villainy left him with nothing to do.

Malkovich can do pathos, as in Places in the Heart or Of Mice and Men, but that’s not the same thing. Even when he plays a character who might have been heroic in the script, like the crusading preacher taking on the Los Angeles police department in last fall’s Changeling, he seems determined to repel us. Think of his most characteristic role and you’re likely to remember his Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons.

In The Great Buck Howard, Malkovoich stars as a character whom any other actor would inevitably have played for sympathy. Buck Howard is a lower-tier celebrity still coasting on the fact that he was a popular guest on The Tonight Show when it was hosted by Johnny Carson. He drops the names of friends like George Takai or the Captain and Tenille and seriously expects you to be impressed.

Howard is, by his own definition, a “mentalist.” He performs on stage, hypnotizing people, finding lost objects, etc. He performs “effects,” not tricks—you don’t want to call him a magician. “I was a magician—when I was three,” he sniffs, in the scornful way that Malkovich does so well.

Time has clearly passed him by. But the United States is a big place, and while Entertainment Weekly might sneer at his well-worn routine, there are plenty of towns and cities that still enjoy his kind of schtick, who accept his outburst of “I love this town!” at face value and get misty when he takes to the piano for a sentimental ballad.

The Great Buck Howard was inspired by writer-director’s Sean McGinly’s years as the road manager for the Amazing Kreskin, someone you are unlikely to remember if you are excited about seeing any other film opening this week. Despite his failings—he’s vain, finicky, prissy, demanding, cheap, spiteful, and hugely out of touch—it’s an affectionate portrait. McGinly refuses to divulge how any of Howard’s magical effects are achieved, even as he has other characters discussing how they might be faked.

Nor does he answer another question at least one character openly asks: Is Howard gay? We see only as much of the man as is seen by his new personal assistant, Troy (Colin Hanks), who has taken the job in desperation after having dropped out of law school.

Most of the film is seen through Troy’s eyes, which is unfortunate because he’s not terribly interesting. You wish that McGinly could have found a better way to accomplish what he wanted to do, portray a character like Howard in his self-imposed mystery. And you wish that he could have concocted a stronger story to contain Howard. (He certainly has a good enough cast, with Emily Blunt, Steve Zahn, and a wealth of familiar faces, including Colin’s dad, who also produced the movie.)

In the end it’s Malkovich’s performance that lifts The Great Buck Howard a little above the level of an amusing time-waster. He manages a trick that a lot of actors couldn’t have pulled off: gaining sympathy for a character who does nothing to earn or attract your sympathy.

Watch the trailer for The Great Buck Howard