Seek the truth with ‘An Honest Liar’

Along with opening a new movie, "Seymour: An Introduction," and picking up the Noah Baumbach feature "While We're Young," the Magic Lantern is continuing a number of decent films — including the documentary "An Honest Liar." Following as a transcription of the review that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

If you want to start an argument, one good way would be to spout off about the relative nature of truth. Say you admitted that some truths seem absolute – that seven and seven always equals 14, for example, or that nothing can exceed the speed of light. You could then point out that many astrophysicists no longer consider Pluto a planet, and that concepts of a deity called God shift according to the religion defining them. Cognitive relativism, indeed.

The fact is, people believe something because they want – sometimes desperately – for that something to be true. All con artists know this. As do magicians.

Certainly The Amazing Randi does, something that the documentary “An Honest Liar” makes abundantly clear. The 86-year-old James Randi is a magician-slash-escape artist, now retired, whose resume includes numerous appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show. But Randi may be even better known for his work challenging so-called psychics and others claiming to possess mental powers.

As co-directors Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein point out, Randi has always copped to the fact that magic is an illusion, a clever trick. And he’s deeply suspicious of those who claim their powers are real and who make money off the gullible. Two of Randi’s most prominent targets have been Uri Geller, whose spoon-bending telekinesis act was all the rage during the 1970s, and the evangelist Peter Popoff, whose fake psychic readings Randi unveiled in 1986.

In fact, one of the most intriguing sequences of “An Honest Liar” is the detailed explanation of how Randi and an electronics expert discovered Popoff’s secret – involving a hidden earpiece through which Popoff’s wife fed him his alleged revelations – and revealed it to Carson on national television.

But charlatans haven’t been Randi’s only targets. He’s also scammed bona-fide researchers, such as those working for the Stanford Research Institute, all – or at least mostly – in an effort to seek out truth. At least two of Randi’s confederates show regret over tricking the researchers, whose careers couldn’t have been helped by the resulting embarrassment.

The movie enters even more shaky ethical territory when it reveals an aspect of Randi’s life that seemed to develop even as the filmmakers were still figuring out what kind of documentary they wanted to make. It involves Randi’s sexual orientation and some illegal actions committed by a man Randi had cohabited with for some 25 years.

And while such a news flash couldn’t be ignored, the way it’s presented – amid self-justifying statements by both Popoff and Geller – makes it seem as if the actions of the charlatans and those of Randi’s well-meaning companion enjoy moral equivalency. Which is hardly the case.

That aside, “An Honest Liar” relies on the charisma of its engaging central figure. Measom and Weinstein trot out a host of witnesses, including the likes of Penn Gillette, rock star Alive Cooper and even the buoyant Geller himself to give talking-head tributes and/or rebuttals to Randi and his feats.

But Randi himself remains the star, honest trickster to the end.