It is said that the two things you never want to see made are laws and sausages. I can think of a few other things too. In The Great Buck Howard, we are given backstage access to the life of an entertainer, and while the film, like a good performer, never reveals the tricks of the artist’s trade, we are still left with the feeling that, in this case at least, less would have been more.

Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) is a walking cliché, pushed into law school by his overbearing but well-intentioned father (Tom Hanks) and now thoroughly miserable. Dropping out (he keeps that little tidbit a secret from Dad), Troy answers an ad for a “personal assistant to a celebrity performer,” thinking it will, at best, catapult him into a glamorous Hollywood job or, at the very least, take him as far from torts as possible. What he gets instead is Buck Howard — er, excuse me — The Great Buck Howard, a “mentalist” (do not make the mistake of calling him a magician) who once appeared on “The Tonight Show” 61 times but has now been reduced to small theaters in backwater towns. Buck is flamboyant, larger-than-life and swaddled in ego. If he knows he’s a has-been, he’s not letting on. The introductory meeting in which Buck is supposed to size Troy up consists instead of Buck talking endlessly about himself. Buck is not only the center of the universe, he is the universe entire. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t have charm or genuine sweetness. Buck legitimately appears to love the audiences who come out to see him, even if their numbers dwindle more and more each year.

Desperate for a change and despite the fact that everyone around him knows he’s destined for better things, Troy takes the job. He discovers Buck’s show, while cheesy, has a kind of bygone, clean, family-oriented appeal that he finds endearing. It isn’t long, however, before he realizes that Buck’s act is on life support, and as he struggles to tame Buck’s diva-esque tantrums, Troy realizes that unless his boss comes up with something really big, really fast, they are both going to be out on the street.

It’s a shame that Colin Hanks is such a limp noodle, especially since Malkovich plays Buck to perfection. Hanks is unusually charmless, like a blander version of his father. A likeable enough actor who has shown far more personality in films far worse than this one, Hanks fails miserably as the one character with whom we are supposed to relate. Even Emily Blunt, who plays a precocious publicist hired to stage Buck’s comeback, can’t coax him out of his dreary shell.

It’s not entirely Hanks’ fault. Writer/director Sean McGinly fails him on numerous occasions. Fails to make him interesting. Fails to give him dimension. At several instances throughout the film, time is compressed, forcing the audience to accept sea changes in the plot before we’ve had a chance to even process the change has taken place. Whole plot points — like the alleged greatest feat of mentalism ever — are forgotten as soon as they occur. All of this has the effect of making the characters, especially Troy, seem indecisive. We hear Troy say he’s fed up with Buck and is leaving so often that he becomes the boy who cried wolf.

I’m not sure of the point of Buck Howard. Are we supposed to walk away having focused on a man’s ending or a boy’s beginning…or both? Staying true to yourself even in a changing world or the serendipitous instructive detours life throws our way during our search for meaning? Enduring even when you’re all alone and people stopped paying attention long ago or the illusion of the second chance? The fickle nature of the entertainment industry or the authenticity of small town America? It’s not that the lightweight Buck Howard ever offends. It just, like its protagonist who struggles with losing his “powers,” never found its magic.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.