Is it murder or is it Title Drop?
Rollie: In this hand is the ammo for the gun.
Rollie: And this is Krazy Glue. 1001 uses... now 1002.
Rollie: And this is Krazy Glue. 1001 uses... now 1002.
F/X: Murder by Illusion is a 1986 movie starring Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy about a special effects designer who gets dragged into a criminal conspiracy.
Rollie Tyler (Brown) is hired by the F.B.I.'s witness protection program to use his special effects skills to fake the death of notorious mob boss Nicholas DeFranco (Jerry Orbach). The F/X shoot goes awry, making it look like Rollie is responsible for DeFranco's actual murder. As Tyler goes on the run, Detective Leo McCarthy (Dennehy) investigates the murder.
The movie was followed up in 1991 with F/X 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion, in which Rollie, now retired from special effects, is asked by his girlfriend's ex-husband to help him catch a killer. When the ex-husband and killer are both killed by an unknown assailant, Rollie turns to former-detective turned Private Investigator McCarthy to help him figure out why and bring the killer to justice.
The movies were adapted into F/X: The Series, which has its own page,
Not to be confused with FX, the Disney-owned cable channel, or f(x), the South Korean Girl Group.
F/X and F/X 2 contain examples of:
- Always a Bigger Fish: The plot of the sequel kicks in when a third party kills both the ex-husband of Rollie's girlfriend and the killer he was going to catch at the same time during a sting operation. Leading Rollie and McCarthy to try and catch him and his superiors.
- Automobile Opening: used in the sequel as part of the Fake Action Prologue, with the camera following the car driven by the alien cyborg through the city before crashing it near a wino.
- The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: A phone call is traced to the lobby of the same government building where the call is being taken. Turns out that two pay phones have been taped together earpiece-to-mouthpiece so tracing the call wouldn't work.
- Celebrity Paradox: The Rambo films exists in the film's universe, evidenced by the poster for the second film in Rollie's apartment. Leo's actor Brian Dennehy had played the Big Bad of the first film.
- Chekhov's Gun: DeFranco's pacemaker in the first one. He worries that the transceiver used to trigger the blood-packs will interfere with it. At the end, he touches an electrified gate. Whoops!
- Chekhov's Armory: Any and all special effects equipment that is shown at one point in either movie will come in to play by the end for more than Rollie's work.
- Cold Sniper: William Adams from the first film, who manages to shoot Ellen.
- Creator Cameo: One of the effects artists being chewed out at the beginning of the sequel (specifically the one who sets off the cop car explosion too late) is played by an uncredited Eric Allard, the film's special effects supervisor and one of its second-unit directors.
- Decoy Protagonist: In the first film Ellen seems like a typical love interest and a sidekick, but is shot by a sniper 30 minutes in.
- Dirty Cop: Main villain of the second film.
- Enhance Button: Makes an appearance in the second film to spot the killer in the reflection of a mirror.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Rollie, as per his job as an effects technician. The sequel ups this by having him work on a robotic clown named Bluey during his off time.
- Groin Attack: Rollie uses Bluey to pull one of these on his attacker on the sequel.
- Easter Egg: In the sequel, a couple of props shown in Rollie's apartment workshop are from earlier projects by Eric Allard and All Effects. These include a robot head from Class of 1999 and a toy robot from a pre-Energizer Bunny Energizer commercial.
- Fake Action Prologue: Both movies open up with a shooting of a film.
- In the first movie, it's a crime thriller involving a mysterious trenchcoated man shooting up a fancy restaurant. The scene is performed successfully thanks to Rollie's work.
- For the second, a sci-fi alien movie inspired by The Terminator featuring an alien cyborg Disguised in Drag is being filmed. The shoot ends in failure when the effects technician's explosion doesn't go off when it's supposed to. Things get further compounded when the "Quarter million dollar" animatronic prop used for the alien cyborg runs amok and threatens the safety of the gathered audience. Rollie jumps in to deactivate it, to the director's annoyance.
- Faking the Dead: The professed intent of Rollie's first job is to do this for DeFranco being put into witness protection. It turns out to be a double bluff where Rollie is framed for the death of DeFranco, but he was indeed only Faking The Dead.
- It Works Better with Bullets: When the first movie's Big Bad brandishes a pistol at Rollie, Rollie shows him the bullets he took from the gun and the superglue he put on the gun's handle, gluing the useless gun to the villain's hands.
- Jump Scare: Rollie has a latex movie monster set up to leap at his door while a recording of the monster's roar is played, whenever somebody comes in. An effective anti-intrusion method. In the second movie, he employs a remote-controlled clown lying in wait for anyone anticipating the monster!
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: McCarthy finishes a "how to use a gun" lecture to a female cop with, "And this is how you 'cock the sucker'...in a manner of speaking, that is."
- Latex Perfection: Justified in that Rollie not only employs significant computer resources to generate a full 3-D image of the head, but he also generates the "mask" in strips so that it moves naturally with the face.
- Lighter and Softer: The PG-13 sequel is this to the R-rated original film, due to less profanity, gore and violence.
- MacGyvering: Rollie uses his special effects wizardry to survive a number of scrapes throughout the films.
- The Mafia: The Italian Mafia appear as villains in both movies.
- Master of Disguise: Rollie makes full use of his makeup skills to appear as different people, or to disguise other people as part of his plans.
- Numbered Sequels: The second movie simply changes F/X to F/X 2 to create the sequel name.
- Practical Effects: The point of both films, with Rollie himself being an effects technician using his skills to help solve crimes. Also the case in a meta sense, with both films having notable, experienced effects techniciansnote doing the actual effects.
- Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: In the climax of the first movie, Rollie deals with Mason's mooks by using special effects tricks to make them kill each other while trying to kill him (for instance, by making a reflection of himself appear to a mook who shoots at it and kills another mook who was standing behind it).
- Shower Scene: Used to lure out the killer in the second movie. it works a little too well, as the killer and the person used as bait are both taken out at the same time by a third party.
- Slashed Throat: Used to off the ex-husband and his killer in the second movie.
- Special Effects Evolution: With the sequel, the film adds animatronics and robotics into the mix. Justified as the crew behind the film's effects were also responsible for the robotic effects in Short Circuit and Class of 1999, with a skull from the latter being seen among Rollie's belongings as an Easter Egg.
- Staged Shooting: What Rollie is hired for in the first movie, based on the success of one he helped execute for a movie.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The opening prologue of the sequel starts off with a cop car failing to blow up on cue, only for the effects team to do so just after the director chews them out. Rollie more effectively uses this against his would-be assailant by jerry-rigging some hair spray and canned beans at a supermarket.
- Suicide by Cop: How Rollie deals with Colonel Mason in the first movie. He tricks him into grabbing an unloaded Uzi covered in Krazy Glue (see the quotes at the top of the page) and forces Mason into a confrontation with the police, where he is quickly shot dead after 'refusing' to drop his gun.
