After starting out promisingly, as a thriller with disarming touches of magic, this ditches the thriller aspect in favour of magic, mysticism and not a little all-round silliness. Bridget Fonda plays a magician's assistant in immediate post-war times who agrees, for social gain, to marry a wealthy aspiring politician (D W Moffett) much to the chagrin of her fatherly boss. After getting trapped in a fake guillotine machine, the slimy politico accidentally shoots the magician dead, an action photographed by Fonda, who goes on the run with the film. Husband-to-be, escaping, hires disreputable war vet Russell Crowe to track her down as she flees through Mexico. This section of the film is the most entertaining, full of pseudo-smart dialogue, with Crowe and Fonda looking like Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in their period gear. Once Fonda travels to a mysterious island to obtain some kind of native magic potion, though, the whole thing goes haywire, developing into a screwball comedy of the wildest (and crudest) kind.

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