This week, Questionable Taste Theatre presents Rough Magic!

Nutshell: Uh, it’s pretty impossible. Okay, so, magician’s assistant Myra Shumway is on track to marry a smarmy young Senator for reasons that are never explained, but she ends up changing her mind and going on the lam when her fiancé pops a cap in her boss. In el refugio Mexico, she’s tracked by Russell Crowe (back when he was still an actor and not that Australian guy everyone hates), a World War II vet and fedora-wearing private eye who falls for Myra like a sack of something heavy. There’s also Mexican shaman women, a gas station attendant whom she turns into a sausage, tarantulas, fire-eaters, a uranium museum, planes, gay butlers, and Paul Rodriguez.

What’s not to like, right?

This movie, based on book-I’ve-never-read “Myra Shumway Waves a Wand”, is like a comedic version of The Big Sleep with more tortillas. And magic. And Jim Broadbent. Does it make sense? No. Do I love it? Yes.

The dialogue is straight-up Old-School Caper Banter©:

Alex Ross: I’m your guardian angel.
Myra: You don’t look so angelic to me.
Alex Ross: Well, you know, standards are down all over.

Also, I really love them together in this. It’s the only movie I’ve ever liked Bridget Fonda in, and this movie was my second-ever exposure to Russell Crowe — and the dude may be a jerk, but he acts his ass off in this movie, which is more than can be said for some people. (Paul Rodriguez, I’m looking at you!)

If a romantic caper isn’t enough to get your butt in the seat, allow me to direct you to the magical/speculative element. Myra has actual magical abilities the charlatans around her lack. If you dream of movies where women lay eggs that hatch tarantulas, or where someone barfs a playing card representative of a vital organ, this is the movie for you! (If you can’t tell, “realism” is not really in the stars on this one.)

So, they make kissyface until “Doctor” Jim Broadbent convinces Myra to go into the jungle and meet with the powerful shaman women and bring him back their magic potion that has the ability to move the plot forward. She’s very excited about being a novice shamanette and can’t wait to share her, uh, joy with Alex, until her fiancé shows up to take her home and pay Alex for telling him where she was. Oh snap!

So, Myra gets pissed and kills Alex with her mind. Oh, SNAP.

Then she barfs up her own heart, turns it into a playing card, and flushes it. Oh…something.

The new heartless Myra is the sort of gal who lounges poolside in a bathing suit, slingbacks, and a full-length fur, and then storms off to face a now-living Alex (who barfed up the tarantula, he’s totally fine) and sex him mightily!

This scene doesn’t really happen in the movie – he kicks her out in her black girdle when he realizes she’s quite literally heartless – but, you know, whatever, publicity department!

Anyway, she ends up not marrying Senator Fiancé because he drinks some of the magic potion and declares himself in love with his butler (whatever!), so Myra leaves the scene of the wedding in her AMAZING wedding dress and top hat, with a playing card tucked into her bosom by an old lady who may or may not be a shaman (whatever!) and wanders her way right into her dead boss who was never really dead (WHATEVER) and then finds her heart again and runs to Alex’s place, where they turn into bunnies and have sex.

No, for real. The last scene in this movie is bunnies doing it.

…you’re on Amazon right now, aren’t you? You’re sick! Sick!

I have a feeling this movie appeals to the magical realists in the world, also known as “people who can follow along during all the symbolic barfing”. I can’t prove it, though, because every time I watch this movie I just glee around in the bantery dialogue and glaze over during the trip-to-the-shaman and heart-barfing parts.

Rough Magic is another in the seemingly endless collection of movies I track down like it’s an episode of Prime Suspect; my DVD of this movie is a Chinese import that I bought before the movie was even available in the States. Now, of course, you can snag one for 9.99 with Super Saving Shipping, THANKS VERY MUCH, AMAZON.