Penn & Teller Get Killed in a Nutshell

Penn & Teller enjoy playing jokes on each other. When Penn says on an interview show that he wishes he has someone threatening his life so that he “wouldn’t sweat the small stuff,” each of them begins a series of pranks on the other to suggest a real threat. Then they find that a real psychopath is interested in them.

The Penn & Teller Movie Trailer

The Penn & Teller Movie Breakdown

Who is in it? Penn Jillette, and Teller
Genre: Adventure Comedy
Was it Adventurous and funny? Yes.
Would this movie be for every adventure comedy fan? I do, but you have to like exposed magic tricks.
Should you see it? Yes.
Run Time: 89 Minutes.
Rating: R

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The Verdict

This review may be a little biased because I am a HUGE Penn & Teller fan. Their show on Showtime called ‘Bullshit’ is my favorite show! This movie was a series of pranks that the magic team would do on each other essentially, but it’s really funny. We start out on a talk show that has P&T on doing a magic routine. The trick is filming the duo upside down while they do stupid things that looks amazing because the audience at home doesn’t know they are being filmed upside down. After plugging their show, Penn makes a joke about wishing someone was out to kill him so his life would be more interesting and tells a few jokes.

As P&T travel they are always playing jokes on each other and people are always stopping them and making comments about Penn being stupid for saying he wished someone would be out to kill him on tv. Penn’s girlfriend had slipped that her uncle was going to go to Mexico to visit a psychic surgeon that has the power to remove tumors with their bare hands without the actual very invasive procedure. Penn & Teller play a gag on the uncle to expose the “psychics” for the scam artists they are and show how they do their scam. Shortly after some Mexicans show up in a van and abduct P&T because they took a client away from them by exposing them. With plans of torturing Penn they tie both him and Teller to tables and start messing with him. Penn distracts the doctors with unrelenting talking while Teller cuts his way out of the restraints and as he is about to subdue the doctors one of them goes in for the kill but quits. The doctors reveal themselves as members of his team and the entire ordeal was a practical joke on Penn.

Later we find out that Penn & Teller have a stalker and he is not only obsessed with them, he wants Penn dead. A police woman is assigned to the duo for protection and they end up at her apartment. The woman and Penn really hit it off and Teller goes out to the theater to see an ‘All Shemp marathon of The Three Stooges’ movies. During his walk alone he spots a gun in the window of a pawn shop and buys it to protect Penn if the time ever came. Flash forward to about the end, the crazy stalker jumps out of nowhere and stabs Penn in the gut and Teller chases him while Penn enters the hospital seeming to be OK. Teller chases the man up to an apartment where the man is performing the trick they had done while upside down in the beginning of the film. Teller gets knocked out and is hung upside down from the restraints while the woman cop enters the room. Teller wakes up to find that the woman is working with the stalker and she orders him to go finish Penn off at the hospital. As the woman is revealing her hatred for P&T teller gets his gun he had purchased from the pawn shop and aims it at the cop.

Teller, obviously scared hears a noise from behind him and turns and shoots Penn who had set up the entire thing as a joke. The woman cop was actually Penn’s girlfriend and the stalker was an actor they hired. Penn dies instantly and the two come to a realization that the joke had turned sour. Teller shoots himself in the chest and dies, the girlfriend throws herself out of the window, the actor comes with his friend and they both see the mess and kill themselves too. Two cops show up because someone reported loud noises and after seeing the senseless violence, they kill themselves too. As the credits are rolling you can hear random people happening by the room and then shortly after, killing themselves which happens the duration of the credits as a running gag.

Official Nutshell-Movies Explanation

Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989): Penn Jillette plays a meticulous practical joke on Teller that turns into mass suicide.