F/X2 (1991)

F/X man Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is now a toy maker. Mike Brandon (Tom Mason), the ex-husband of Rolly's girlfriend Kim(Rachel Ticotin), is a cop. He asks Rollie to help catch a killer. ... See full summary »

Director:

Richard Franklin

Writers:

Robert T. Megginson (characters), Gregory Fleeman (characters)

Stars:

Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Rachel Ticotin

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bryan Brown	...	Rollie Tyler
Brian Dennehy	...	Leo McCarthy
Rachel Ticotin	...	Kim Brandon
Joanna Gleason	...	Liz Kennedy
Philip Bosco	...	Ray Silak
Kevin J. O'Connor	...	Matt Neely
Tom Mason	...	Mike Brandon
Dominic Zamprogna	...	Chris Brandon
Jossie DeGuzman	...	Velez
John Walsh	...	Rado
Peter Boretski	...	Becker
Lisa Fallon	...	Kylie
Lee Broker	...	DeMarco
Philip Akin	...	Det. McQuay
Tony De Santis	...	Det. Santoni (as Tony de Santis)

Storyline

F/X man Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is now a toy maker. Mike Brandon (Tom Mason), the ex-husband of Rolly's girlfriend Kim(Rachel Ticotin), is a cop. He asks Rollie to help catch a killer. The operation goes well until some unknown man kills both the killer and Mike.Mike's boss, Ray Silak (Philip Bosco) says it was the killer who killed Mike but Rollie knows it wasn't. Silak is involved with Mike's death, so he calls on Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy), the cop from the last movie, who is now a P.I., for help and they discover it's not just Silak they have to worry about.

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Plot Keywords:

special effects | smoke machine | australian man | phone booth | phone | 

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Taglines:

Outgunned by the mob, outmanned by the cops..... their effects had _better_ be special!

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG-13

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 May 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

FX2

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$16,400,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,455,058, 12 May 1991

Gross USA:

$21,082,165

Company Credits

Production Co:

Orion Pictures, Dodi Fayed - Jack Wiener

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although set in New York, the majority of this film was shot in Toronto over an 11-week period during the spring and summer of 1990. The location required some extra effort to "sell" the illusion. In fact: streets in Toronto's Chinatown had to be dirtied up to match their New York counterparts.

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Goofs

(at around 18 mins) When Rollie is telling Mike about his hidden camera, while he's talking he's reflected in a mirror and his mouth clearly isn't moving.

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Quotes

Leo McCarthy: Rollie, tell me those aren't the real medallions.
Rollie Tyler: Yeah, I swithced 'em.
Leo McCarthy: Rollie you dumb bastard, the mob wasn't stealing them, they were returning them, to the Vatican.
Rollie Tyler: Nobody told me.

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Crazy Credits

Shot of helicopter flying and exclamations of non-pilot crook trying to keep it in the air.

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Alternate Versions

The scene in which Tyler converts an aerosol can into a "grenade" was cut by the New Zealand censors on the grounds that it might inspire real-life incidents of "copycat" behaviour.

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Connections

Referenced in Psych: Indiana Shawn and the Temple of the Kinda Crappy, Rusty Old Dagger (2012)

User Reviews

a surprisingly-good sequel

F/X 2 turned out to be a better sequel that I was expecting, as a result of what I had heard people say about it over the years. I was glad to see Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy share more scenes together this time around (they only had one in the first film), and I was also surprised that the story was pretty good, in the same league as the first. Sure, some parts were predictable (nearly every film has got some predictability to it), but for the most part, it was nicely-paced with some good suspense and mystery. I was hoping for a better usage of special effects by the characters (after all, the series is called F/X), but Brown pretty much just MacGyvers his way through the film, especially in the supermarket sequence, one of the film's standout scenes. My personal favorite was the scene in Brown's apartment, where he uses an animatronic remote-controlled clown to handle an assassin (who, like Cliff DeYoung in the first film, mysteriously vanishes from the movie without a trace), and the battle at the mansion at the end of the film is pretty exciting, with Brown making use of a bunch of effects equipment to stop the bad guys. All-in-all, a pretty decent sequel that has me torn between which of the two films I like more. I really can't decide. I know it's been eleven years, and since this one apparently didn't perform as well at the box office as the first one did, I doubt we'll ever see an F/X 3, but I wouldn't mind seeing it.