Rough Magic

This decidedly strange concoction directed by Clare Peploe combines magic, intrigue and dodgy elixirs in '50s Mexico. Bridget Fonda plays a magician's assistant who decides to take off down South and across the border after the death of her magician friend. She leaves behind her millionaire fiancé, Cliff Wyatt, and soon meets a dodgy salesman (Jim Broadbent) and a young man by the name of Alex Ross (New Zealander Russell Crowe, also in Virtuosity) who, unbeknown to her, is working indirectly for Wyatt.

The result is a weird movie which constantly gives the impression that it is leading somewhere, yet doesn't. But Fonda occupies the screen for 90 per cent of the time and is always worth watching as Myra, a girl with a gift for magic, and as long as she seems to have ambition, you tend to want to see where it will lead next.