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John (Dan Gerics) is nothing but a little wheel in a big corporation,
constantly harrassed by his boss Kyle (Nicholas Joseph Mackey), who just
likes this kind of powerplay, and who also forces the co-worker Emily
(Kirstin Vanhooser) who John's secretly in love with to do him some sexual
favours - everybody knows about this, but nobody says anything out of fear
of getting fired. So basically, John's life is hell ... and then, one
night, on a whim, he visits a backstreets circus, and the magician of the
show (Rick Carver) hands him his book of magic tricks and tells him he has
to learn the tricks in the book in sequence to reach ultimate power ...
which John does, mostly probably because he has nothing better to do, and
the first thing he notices is that his colleagues who have formerly
shunned him are quite taken by his magic tricks, and soon he's accepted as
one of them and they take him with them for after hours partying. But the
more he becomes part of the system, the more Kyle despises John.
In the meantime, John has gotten ahead just a bit in the magic book,
and has made it to a secret chapter that tells him how to
"influence" people to do certain things - like killing his boss.
But these are of course powers that aren't to be harnassed just like that,
and that shouldn't be left unchecked as well to avoid grand scale disaster
...
Basically, Bailiwick is a film for the little man wanting
revenge on the society that spurned him - and it does achieve that very
well by telling a story that's ripe with satire, that digs into its
characters, and where the fantasy elements are more of a catalyst than the
center of the story. And all this is brought to life by a really clever
script, a subtle direction and strong performances ... and of course a
deliciously dark sense of humour!
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