MOVIE REVIEWS : Well-Crafted ‘FX2’ Flies on Wit, Engaging Characters

Will Rollie Tyler never learn?

When we first met Rollie (Bryan Brown), a Manhattan-based film industry special-effects expert in the popular “F/X,” he let government agents talk him into faking a supposedly phony hit on a Mafia chieftain--and Rollie’s girlfriend wound up dead.

In the tense and splashy “FX2--The Deadly Art of Illusion” (citywide), five years have passed and he has left the movies to design a line of intricately mechanized toys. He has a new live-in lover (Rachel Ticotin) who has a small son (Dominic Zamprogna). However, Ticotin’s ex (Tom Mason), a nice-guy cop, persuades the understandably reluctant Rollie to lend his skills once again to the crime-stoppers, this time to snare a would-be killer. Naturally, Rollie is plunged into instant danger.

“FX2” is more elaborate, especially in its gadgetry, and at times more improbable than the original, but it’s just as much fun, largely because Brian Dennehy’s veteran Irish cop now gets equal screen time with Brown. The first time around, Brown and Dennehy had only two scenes together; this time Brown immediately turns for help to Dennehy’s shrewd, gruff Leo McCarthy, who has retired from the force to become a private eye.

Writer Bill Condon has involved Rollie and Leo in a suitably scary and convoluted adventure with a roster of well-drawn characters. It could be argued that one of the most likable people need not have been killed off, threatening to make the movie a downer, and that another is required to undergo a character reversal that defies credibility. However, “FX2” is a terrific escapist entertainment, directed by Richard Franklin with his usual energy and finesse. The most amazing of the film’s gadgets is a NASA-devised “telemetry suit.” When Rollie dons it he can make a clown robot, via remote control, duplicate his every movement, simultaneously and in perfect coordination.

Franklin strives not to let the gimmicks--so imaginatively devised by the film’s real special-effects man, Eric Allard--and the crackerjack action overwhelm the story’s human dimension. Indeed, the film’s set piece, a work of virtuoso staging, finds the resourceful Rollie fending off a killer armed only with what he can grab off a supermarket’s shelves.

Ticotin has a likable, down-to-earth quality, but the film is dominated by Brown and Dennehy’s amiable sparring. In the years since the first “F/X,” Dennehy has emerged as one of the stage and screen’s finest, most versatile actors. Leo McCarthy has got to be a piece of cake for him, but he never walks through the part; instead, he savors the considerable opportunities for humor and gusto provided by Condon.

Brown is ever the stalwart, amiable Aussie bloke, and he and Dennehy are surrounded by an exemplary cast that includes Joanna Gleason as a canny assistant D.A., Philip Bosco as a crooked cop, Kevin J. O’Connor as an amusingly nervous and nerdy low-level mobster, and Josie DeGuzman as a good-hearted police department computer whiz.

There’s been no stinting in the making of “FX2” (rated PG-13 for bloodshed and language). Cinematographer Victor J. Kemper, one of the best, has such fluidity and ease--and lights each scene so perfectly--that there’s at all times a sense of unity between the story and the manner in which it is being told. The craftsmanship that went into the making of this film has to have been formidable, yet a key part of its enjoyment is its throwaway, unpretentious charm.

‘FX2--The Deadly Art of Illusion’

Bryan Brown Rollie Tyler

Brian Dennehy Leo McCarthy

Rachel Ticotin Kim Brandon

Joanna Gleason Liz Kennedy

An Orion Pictures presentation. Director Richard Franklin. Producers Jack Wiener, Dodi Fayed. Executive producer Lee R. Mayes. Screenplay by Bill Condon; based on characters created by Robert T. Megginson and Gregory Fleeman. Cinematographer Victor J. Kemper. Editor Andrew London. Costumes Linda Matheson. Music Lalo Schifrin. Production design John Jay Moore. Art director Gregory P. Keen. Set decorator Gordon Sim. Sound Bruce Carwardine. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13 (bloodshed, language).