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Bogus (film)

Bogus
Bogus FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Norman Jewison
Produced by
Written by Alvin Sargent
Starring
Music by Marc Shaiman
Cinematography David Watkin
Edited by Stephen E. Rivkin
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
  • September 6, 1996 (1996-09-06)
Running time
110 minutes
Country United States
Language
  • English
  • French
Budget $25 million
Box office $4.4 million

Bogus is a 1996 American fantasy film directed by Norman Jewison, written by Alvin Sargent, and starring Whoopi Goldberg, Gérard Depardieu, and Haley Joel Osment. It features magic tricks with magician Whit Haydn as consultant. It did poorly at the box office and Goldberg was nominated for a Razzie Award for her performance. It was filmed in Canada and New Jersey.

A fantasy, it tells the story of seven-year-old Albert Franklin (Haley Joel Osment), the son of a Las Vegas magician's widowed assistant (Nancy Travis). His mother dies suddenly in a car accident and Albert, who is now an orphan, is sent to New Jersey to live with his mother's foster sister, Harriet (Whoopi Goldberg). The plot revolves around Albert, and his imaginary friend named Bogus (Gérard Depardieu), a French magician, who helps the boy cope with his transition. Gradually Harriet, who can also see Bogus, comes to terms with her new situation as well.

Although portrayed as Newark, NJ, part of the film was filmed in Van Vorst Park neighborhood of Downtown Jersey City.

Bogus opened at #11 in its opening weekend with $1,895,593 and grossed $4,357,406 in the US.

Rotten Tomatoes reports that 40% of 15 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.9/10. Leonard Klady of Variety wrote, "Sweetly sentimental and anachronistically whimsical, Bogus is a modern metaphor oddly out of step with contemporary taste."Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Jewison lays on the dry ice and special effects without adding emotion to a slow, hackneyed story."Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated it 3/4 stars and called it "a charming, inconsequential fantasy" that wisely avoids realism.


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