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Variety: Chris Tucker to Star in “The Rabbit”

Mark Panner is a contributor to Inside Magic. Actually, he sends us articles just about every day. This one looked interesting and we should edit it first but we are running out of time. So here it is with all that Mark Panner specialness readers either love or hate. To read one of his classics, check out his review of Bob Sheets here.  – Editor —

Inside Magic Image of Melinda Saxe - First Lady of MagicWe were on the back lot sipping coffee with some of our closest friends in the world who just happen to be in Hollywood and just happen to be filming at Warner Brothers Studios.

These are true, blue non-fake friends who care about us as no one else could or would care about us.

How good of friends are these? Let’s put it this way, there are very few people in this world who would donate a spleen; even for a friend. One of our friends gave us a spleen yesterday.

Granted, we didn’t need the spleen but it is the thought that counts. He even showed us the freshly stitched wound evidencing a recent removal of the organ.

In fact, we could feel that it was about body temperature even though it was thoroughly wrapped in white paper — like from the butcher but probably more sanitary and durable.

We know that for a fact because they told us just that very thing yesterday whilst sipping coffee and waiting for the set to call them for the next shot. They’re in a movie about zombies who do surgery and that way they only need to eat their victim a little bit at a time. Until they hit the vital innards, the victim can go about their daily chores.

It is a good idea but not very realistic. Once you are bit by a zombie, you become a zombie. Everyone knows that. Our friends said that the movie explains away that objection. Because the zombie doctors take out the organs they want to eat, the organs aren’t attached to the victim at the time of biting.

We’ll have to think about that.

Anyway, we were talking there on the back lot at Warner and we learned the studio intends to come out with a new flick (movie talk for “film” and likely derived from the flicker of light seen in older movie projectors) called “The Rabbit” starring Chris Tucker.

We like Chris Tucker although we have never met him or received any organs from him in any type of packaging. He talks funny and he does goofy things with his hands and fingers that makes us laugh.

It makes sense, then, that Chris Tucker will be playing the part of an escape artist in what is described by our friends as a “comedy adventure” flick.

The script sounds great.

A Las Vegas magician and master escape artist, is forced to flee the country and becomes an internationally renowned “Houdini for hire” for clients wanting to break themselves or loved ones out of prison. All that changes when the CIA offers him a chance of redemption in exchange for one final job — to retrieve a socially stunted master counterfeiter from a remote Eastern European fortress before the Russian mob can get to him.

Totally believable — they had us at Las Vegas Magician. Let’s face it, they know their stuff in Hollywood because there are in fact magicians in Las Vegas. Some of the greatest magicians in the world are there. So, that part of the plot ties perfectly, seamlessly, with reality. Patrons will wonder if they are watching a “comedy adventure” or the nightly news because of the eerie parallels.

Second point: There are people who would pay someone to help their loved one escape from a prison. So the Houdini for Hire theme is right on the button, reality for sure. And who better to do the Houdini for Hire than a magician. Perhaps a Las Vegas Magician?

Genius in its subtle tie-in to the first link to reality!

What about the last couple of parts?

Would the CIA make a deal with a magician, even a Las Vegas magician and escape artist?

Again, the boys in the writers’ bungalows did their research. We read somewhere that some famous magician was approached by the CIA to teach their agents how to use magic in their work. Originally we thought the magician was Melinda Saxe – The First Lady of Magic but that is just be cause we like to think about her, a lot. Plus she is or was a Las Vegas magician.

It turned out the magician who helped the CIA did so in the 1950s or 1940s so Melinda couldn’t have been the one — she wasn’t born until the early 1990s we think. It was a male magician who helped the CIA. And while John Mulholland was expert in our craft and the editor of The Sphinx and invented millions of tricks, he was not as attractive to us as Melinda – The First Lady of Magic.

Anyway, that’s another point of connection. The magician who helped the CIA was a man and the magician who will help in the movie is also a man.

They nailed it.

The final part of connection is the counterfeiter being in jail in Eastern Europe. We suppose that could happen but we have never seen it happen. This is one of those areas where you need to suspend your disbelief and just go with the story line. As they say in Hollywood, it doesn’t have to be real, just look real.

We’re debating what to do with our new spleen. We put it in ice when we got back to our trailer but now its starting to smell and according to Wikipedia, a person only needs one spleen in them at a time. We hate to see it go to waste, though. Maybe we’ll give it back to our true friend and thank him for the gesture.

He could have the doctor undo the stitches and put it back in. Maybe our true, blue friend will return the money we lent him in exchange for his organ as collateral. Even if we don’t get our $40,000.00 back, we have at least made a friend and, if we keep the spleen, a nice soup.

Read about Chris Tucker’s new movie here.

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