The sensational public stunts and bizarre private life of escape artist extraordinaire Harry Houdini would make fine footing for an interesting movie. However, much to the chagrin of those who were hoping for something thrilling - which presumably is just about everyone - director Gillian Armstrong decided to make a highfalutin exploration of Houdini’s fractured inner-being. Those who dug The Prestige and rock up for more of the same will leave bitterly disappointed. So will anybody wanting a thoughtful film capable of expressing intelligent ideas with a reasonable degree of subtlety.

The story of Death Defying Acts hovers around what was Houdini’s other great passion: exposing psychic charlatans and supernatural frauds. In 1926 he issued a challenge to the public: if anyone could announce the last words uttered by his dying mother on her deathbed he’d gladly cough up a $10,000 reward.

Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) accepts the challenge. She’s a money-hungry swindler who performs a shonky psychic stage show with her assistant and daughter Benji (Saoirse Ronan). Unsurprisingly Houdini is more captivated by Mary’s beauty and cattish charisma than her psychic abilities (of which she has none). A tug-of-war relationship builds between them, much to the ire of Houdini’s manager (Timothy Spall). The story’s underlining message is simple: it wasn’t trunks, chains or straightjackets that really entrapped Harry Houdini. It was his heart. Armstrong, afraid we might miss the point, spells this out in no uncertain terms.

Filmmakers love to use these kinds of semi-ironic, semi-tragic, emotion-powered concepts to humanise legendary subjects, but one of the problems with Death Defying Acts is that everybody in the audience is likely to leave with exactly the same message. If you haven’t got it by the time the final act rolls, a superfluous voice over from Saorise Ronan makes everything groaningly obvious. Using voice narration to express or even summarise a film’s important themes more often than not comes across as a kind of cinematic how-to-vote card - and that’s certainly the case here.

Unusually flat chemistry between Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones deflates what should have been a sizzling romantic power play into a soggy, spark-less, by-the-numbers to-and-fro. Their performances are actually quite good - but they seem wired to different rhythms, as if they were guided by different directors or trying to appeal to different audiences. Zeta-Jones as always is eerily good at playing a shrew but seems incapable of grasping warm emotions, and, coupled with Pearce’s stoic Houdini, it’s an icy, largely unappealing partnership. The story promises they’ll collide in a stormy final act but doesn’t live up to its hype.

There is no doubt Gilliam Armstrong is an accomplished and exciting director. She was obviously inspired to tell a story built on the idea that Harry Houdini was a prisoner of his own emotional cage, but in Death Defying Acts her direction flitters from feeling stuffy to feeling downright pretentious. Worst of all the film becomes rather drab and wishy-washy as it crawls towards closure. If Harry Houdini were in the audience, he might, indeed, plan an escape.

Review by Luke Buckmaster

Director: Gillian Armstrong
Screenplay: Tony Grisoni, Brian Ward
Cast: Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Timothy Spall, Saoirse Ronan, Silvia Lombardo, Jack Bailer, Frankey Martyn, Dodger Phillips, Aileen O’BGorman

Watch the Death Defying Acts trailer: