Imagine, if you will, fusing Ocean's 11 with The Prestige. You are then close to the intrigue and grandeur of Now You See Me. The movie centers around a group of magicians who refer to themselves as the Four Horsemen who are brought together for a series of shows, the first of which involves robbing a bank live on a Vegas stage. Along for the ride are an FBI agent and his partner from Interpol who are trying to navigate the clues and tricks so they can catch the Horsemen and a professional magician debunker who stands to make a fortune revealing the secrets of the Horsemen's tricks to the world.
I've said for years that the best bank robber would be a truly great magician, because they would rob you blind before you ever realized it and somehow convince you that you enjoyed it. It would seem based on this movie, that I was right . . . sort of.
With brilliant writing, a mostly good cast, some truly intriguing cinematography and a permeating theme of faith and trust, this movie managed to keep me guessing right up until the very end. It truly reinforces one of its most well-worn lines "The closer you look, the less you'll see." I would recommend this movie to anyone who thinks they've mastered the art of film prediction or just anyone willing to follow along and get swept up in the mystery and fun inherent in the best magic shows and the greatest heist movies.
- - - HERE COME THE SPOILERS - - -
The movie opens by telling you to "watch closely, because the closer you look, the less you'll see." It opens by challenging its audience to try and riddle everything out, knowing full well that you probably won't. One of the magicians even warns the FBI agent that the first rule of magic is to always be the smartest guy in the room, and I wouldn't doubt for a second that the writers of this movie are usually the smartest people in whatever room they find themselves.
By far, this movie's biggest strength is the thorough integration of magic into the plot. Having rewatched it since my first viewing in theaters, the entire plot, the entire scheme of the Four Horsemen, is one long magic show. The trick is figuring out who the audience is for the performance. Here's a hint: It's the person who ends up behind bars. He goes through all of the phases that he himself warns the authorities about. He falls into the trap of thinking he understands the trick. He finds himself delighted, amused, and amazed right up until the very end. He falls for all the misdirection, preventing him from seeing where the trick is actually happening until it's too late to save himself.
Some of the acting in this movie is amazing. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine both give performances I would expect from such seasoned actors. Both of their characters revel in their own arrogance right up until the moment when they find themselves played by the Horsemen at which point they perfectly play off a character of that level of pomp's reaction to being duped.
Mark Ruffalo's brilliantly plays a frustrated and highly skeptical FBI agent which is infinitely better acted before the final trick is revealed than after. Granted, I don't know how else he could have played the character at that point, since the writers didn't really give him much to work with. Weak sauce.
Woody Harrelson was by far the highlight of this movie to me. That may be because I'm so in love with his fast-talking, cynical, goofy humor that I don't realize that he's as mediocre in his acting as the rest of the Horsemen. None of them stand out as hugely amazing performances, but, in their defense, part of that is because they are on stage for most of the movie which calls for a very intentionally cheesy type of acting. Their greatest strength is the way they each managed to find their character and fully commit to it. None of the Horsemen were anything like any of the others and that is a much more impressive feet than it sounds.
This movie's weakest element, I must say, is the fact that they cast what I consider to be a weak actress in as large a role as they did. While it is completely possible that Mélanie Laurent is an incredible actress in her native tongue, in English, most of her lines sounded cheesy and forced. This wouldn't be so bad if she was a smaller role, but she is in more scenes than almost anyone else. It got old pretty quick.
One of the coolest scenes in the movie involves what one could call the rookie of the Horsemen. Jack Wilder, played by Dave Franco, has a completely awesome moment where he is left behind to stall while the other three get away. He does this by fighting off two FBI agents using his skills as a magician to do so. He uses misdirection, sleight of hand, and various tools of the trade to leave both agents (along with a few others along the way) embarrassingly beaten and in the dust. It's so much fun to see the way he integrates skills like pickpocketing, card throwing, and smoke and mirrors into his combat.
That integration of magical elements into mundane events is what really drives this movie. For me, the slowest part of the movie came between the second and third shows, because I was having more fun with the magic than with the cop-talk. Then I watched it through again, and realized that that was one of the most exciting points in the movie, because that is where the most amazing of the magic tricks is pulled off . . . one that I didn't even predict.
I loved this movie. It was fun. It was unpredictable. It made you go back and rethink everything that happened multiple times. The characters all played around in the grey area, no one fully good guys or fully bad guys. It was a blast.
I give it two clubs and a cadaver.
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