1 star
Two-time world champion magician Shawn Farquhar is on a mission to prove his theory that hidden in the art of the face cards in every deck of cards are the clues to the conspiracy that killed a French king in 1498.
There isn’t any monetary reward for solving this extremely cold case. The French government isn’t sponsoring Farquhar as he bounces around the globe seeking out other professional sleight-of-hand specialists, not to help solve the crime but to ask them their favorite trick. His only reward for being the Sherlock Holmes of conjurers will be creating a brand-new routine using a deck of playing cards that, voilà, will reveal the story of Charles VIII’s untimely demise.
To work, films about obsessive people on a quest to find something have to convince the audience that the object of their desire is worth the search. Lost in the Shuffle doesn’t do that nearly well enough. Writer/director Jon Omoy and our guide Farquhar are more focused on celebrating the handful of artists and their favorite tricks than they are on stoking the audience’s enthusiasm to bring the liar of the French king to justice. They don’t even do a good job of convincing us that it is a mystery worth solving in the first place. There’s not enough information about the regicide and its impact on the world. If King Henry VIII of England was the king in question and the playing card he was on gave absolute proof of his killer was syphilis, then it would be worth watching. It would be an extremely gross card but a far more interesting movie.
Because it’s a mystery only Farquhar seems to care about, Lost in the Shuffle loses its audience.
1 thought on “Audience Loses in Shuffle”
You kinda lost me when you wrote “voilà” as “viola”. I did finish reading your critique and it is definitely…an opinion. Not a very substantive opinion. You should have just written, “I didn’t like it.” That would have had more value.