F/X

F/X Movie Poster

"Rollie Tyler is the movies' best special effects man.  Now somebody wants him to do it for real.  But is he the weapon or the victim, is it murder, or is it F/X."

Starring Bryan Brown as Rollie Tyler and Brian Dennehy as Lt. Leo McCarthy, F/X was released in 1986 (it was also known as Murder by Illusion).  The movie was a hit with critics, and did well at the box office.  The distributor felt that the movie might have done better had they given it a different name.  It did well enough to warrant a sequel in 1992, as well as a TV series that ran from 1996 to 1998.

In the movie, Tyler is a movie set special effects pro  who was hired by the Justice Department to stage the death of a informant that is headed to the witness protection program.  Because the Feds are afraid that the informant might be killed before the trial, they have Tyler create an elaborate set-up whereby Tyler not only stages the murder, put "pulls the trigger" himself.  After the staged murder goes off without a hitch, Tyler finds that the Feds are trying to kill him.

In the mean time, as Tyler goes about the business of setting the record straight by killing the Feds who are trying to kill him, officer McCarthy discovers the murder of the informant was a fake, that the Feds set it up, and he goes after the main Federal agent, a guy named Mason.  Tyler tricks Mason into grabbing a super glued uzi, and then pushes Mason out the door, where the state police shoot him down.  During the fracas, Tyler ended up with a key to a lock box with millions of dollars in it, and McCarthy is wise to Tyler's plan.  In the end, even after having faked his own death, McCarthy finds Tyler, and the two team-up to retrieve the money and live out their rest of their lives in Europe.