This is a quaint little production starring Colin Hanks as Tom Hanks' son. Great casting -- he really is Tom Hanks' son. On the surface, the film depicts the exploits of an entertainment relic, a mentalist, as seen through the eyes of his young road manager. But the heart of the film is all about finding life's element. Or better put, finding a way to put yourself into your life's element, despite outside pressures to be somewhere or something else. I love this theme. And I like this film. The young man makes a troubling choice to drop the dreams his father has for him, and sets out into the great unknown in search of his own.

The picture opens with a punch, a quirky panache. The first time we're introduced to "The Great Buck Howard," it's with style, playfulness, and a tongue-in-cheek humor from the slow-mo to the soundtrack that tickles all over. I expected "great" things from then on. Though I enjoyed the picture overall, things were merely "very good" from then on, and the wind up lacked the spunk of these earlier sequences.

Lastly, the film relied one too many times on the "it's over now for sure -- oh, wait, no it's not!" motif. That bugged me on the story level, but when I let go of Buck Howard as a person and instead thought of him as a symbol for that illusive mojo, that on-again off-again feeling of actually being in your own element, I was left feeling much more satisfied.

-- Books by Author/Illustrator Ross Anthony --