Black Magic for White Boys
Black Magic for White Boys feels much less politically charged than its title would imply. That being said, this goofy, deadpan satire does reflect real life in potent and accessible ways, and it raises some intriguing questions about everyday concerns. How it answers those questions (or doesn't) can often leave something to be desired, but there is a bizarre-yet-naturalistic charm about it nonetheless.
Black Magic is a soft anthology story of sorts, tying together half-a-dozen plot threads about barely-related characters together through a grungy Manhattan magic show and its dark secrets. Larry the Magnificent (Ronald Guttman) is a man of illusions and tricks, which he performs to nearly nonexistent crowds in his hole-in-the-wall theater. Frustrated by his lack of success, he opts, against his wife's pleas, to go back to his old ways of using black magic. Yes, like, real black magic. Larry the Magnificent can actually do magic.
This black magic, sourced from a hand-written spell book which Larry carries around and doodles in, allows him to make people vanish at will. Where they go, he isn't sure. But he can also bring them back, seemingly wherever he wants. It's a dangerous amount of power, but all he wants is the success of his show.
Meanwhile, newly-minted couple Oscar (Onur Tukel) and Chase (Charlie LaRose) and their friends attend Larry's show on the night he introduces his new magic. Oscar's friend Jamie (Jamie Block) is disintegrated and brought back by Larry, much to the amazement and confusion of Oscar and his friends. After the wondrous date night, Oscar and Chase go on to enter a serious relationship; Jamie, a landlord, goes back to work badgering his tenants about an upcoming rent increase; and Larry continues his black magic, seeing massive increases in audience turnout and a revival of his beloved theater, all the while deteriorating his relationships with his friends who work for him there.
The characters' struggles from this point on drive them to seek out the easy solution. Larry saves his failing theater with his impossible new powers. When Oscar and Chase become pregnant despite Oscar's impression that they wouldn't have kids, Oscar goes behind Chase's back to get an abortion pill. And when Jamie struggles to find a way to get rid of his older, cheaper tenants in favor of flipping his properties for a richer market, he remembers Larry's vanishing magic. Eventually, each of our main characters finds themselves invoking some deep evil in order to get what they want.
The film is divided into five or six "chapters" marked by title cards, all of which are pretty meaningless partitions. We hop back and forth among Larry, Oscar, and Jamie, and less frequently to Chase, a theater intern named Leia (who goes uncredited, for some reason), Larry's assistant named Dean (Colin Buckingham), the theater manager, Leia's toxic boyfriend Ralphie (Brendan Miller), and Oscar's mysterious drug dealer Fred (Franck Raharinosy). It's a lot of hopping. The film could have dramatically benefitted by removing several scenes in which these small characters appear to take central roles and the proceed to disappear again for the rest of the film. It's simply too much to maintain investment in, and prevents the core characters of Larry, Oscar, Jamie, and Chase from being properly explored.
That being said, the story's strangeness is usually enough to keep it afloat. The magic, when it periodically pops into the characters' lives, is treated with a quirky nonchalance. It's never a "burst out laughing" kind of comedy, but it's bleakly snarky and absurd on the regular.
As stated before, the satire could stand to be a little clearer in its intended message, but Black Magic chooses to do more reflecting of real life than commenting on it. It's an interesting choice that prevents the film from being more poignant, but it does allow the almost apathetic, wacky tone to flourish. Black Magic for White Boys is strangely ambitious in its scope and variety, and yet not determined enough to find real resolution or resonance.
This feels like a film nerd's movie; I'm not sure a casual viewer just wanting to be entertained or enlightened will get much from this, but for the screenwriting student or theatre fan, there might be some worthwhile gems to unearth from this one. I believe it can be found on Amazon Prime Video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdY6Khk6OE8&t=54s&w=585