For people of a certain age, these names may act as a time machine back to the 1970s: The Amazing Randi, Uri Geller, Peter Popoff. All come tumbling back to life in “An Honest Liar,” an unexpectedly fun (but sneakily forceful) portrait of a rationalist.
That’s not the way James Randi would have been described when he started out — he was a magician, the Amazing Randi, a modern Houdini with a slightly 50s beatnik vibe, who transformed himself into a full-time debunker of spiritualists, faith healers, and other charlatans.
The documentary’s got a clever through-line about deception as regards Randi’s private life and his longtime partner, the artist Jose Alvarez. But its main appeal is in showing how skepticism and reason can be rewarding philosophies for passing through life.
Randi seems to have taken great joy in exposing flim-flam artists, but there’s a mission there, too, in showing how dangerous it is for individuals, and cultures, to cling to fraudulence. Directors Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein concentrate on two of Randi’s favorite targets to illustrate his methods.
One is Geller, the Israeli mentalist whose great heyday involved bending spoons “with his mind” and other feats of misdirection. We see a choice clip from the “Tonight Show” as Geller fails to execute an ESP gag — unbeknownst to him, Johnny Carson’s staff had earlier consulted with Randi to safeguard the set against Geller’s routine.
And then there’s the Reverend Peter Popoff, whose shtick consisted of divining the names and addresses of his believers, thus priming them for the faith-healing part of his act (he also encouraged followers to throw away their prescription medicine, making him a precursor of the anti-vaccination movement).
Randi went public after an investigation — again Johnny Carson acts as the benign enabler of Randi’s work — to show how Popoff’s wife was feeding him information through an earpiece. The only shadow across the delightful film is that Geller and Popoff are thriving again, along with more current purveyors of magical thinking and science denial.
This must be the cause of much forehead-smacking in James Randi’s life, but he soldiers on against human nature’s need to believe. All of this, and Randi’s puckish, bouncy bearing (he’s 86), make a nice argument that a life of skepticism need not translate into wet-blanketry.
“An Honest Liar” (three stars)
Documentary look at the Amazing Randi, the now-86-year-old magician and debunker of spiritualists, faith healers, and other charlatans. The film’s an unexpectedly delightful portrait of a rationalist, and it’s got great footage of Randi debunking the spoon-bending Uri Geller.
Rating: Not rated; probably PG for subject matter
Showing: Northwest Film Forum
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
