The cunning, combative career of James "The Amazing" Randi, slightly better known as a professional disprover of psychics and faith healers than as an escape artist and illusionist of his own right. His career arc is an unexpectedly exciting one - he rubbed elbows with Johnny Carson and Alice Cooper in his prime - and as showy as one might expect from a lifelong performer. I found his transition right from the stage into the professional debunking game to be a natural one, not to mention noble (he considers work as a magician to be entertainment, while paranormal hoaxes are just thievery) but some see hypocrisy there.
While it stays on the subject of his career, the documentary is a fascinating one. It switches gears in the final half-hour to focus on his personal life, where he's ironically caught by a private swindle during production, but apart from the obvious parallels to his working life I didn't find that long aside terribly interesting. Still, a good story, though perhaps not one that needed a feature-length documentary to explore.
I've been a fan of James Randi for many years and thoroughly enjoyed this. As the documentary started to wind down my heart began to sink for fear of how the revelation was going to resolve.
Shout by saundrewBlockedParent2015-09-05T14:52:08Z
I personally hate magicians who tell people that they are doing "real" things. They call themselves psychics or prophets or whatever. Well this is a movie about a guy who used almost all of his career to show that these people are liars. So obviously it is something I'm going to enjoy. These types seemed to travel all over back in the 60s-80s, but honestly I'm sure they're still everywhere and I'm just not noticing as much. Also, I figured I'd know how the whole thing would go, but they tackled an angle I certainly did not expect towards the end.