I wasn’t expecting much from Now You See Me. I read the synopsis and expected a magician’s version of the Robin Hood tale and in some ways I was right and other ways not so much. Where I hit the nail on the head was in the expectation department. This isn’t a great movie, but a serviceable one that traffics largely in sleight of hand entertainment and “how’d they do that?” more than anything else. Together with the “How?” also comes the “Why?” and by the end I’d say the journey is enjoyable enough to warrant a last minute matinee or home viewing.
Directed by Louis Leterrier (The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk), the film centers on the teaming of four solo act magicians by a mysterious benefactor to carry off a three-act series of heists. The team consists of magician J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), illusionist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and sleight-of-hand artist Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and together they make up the group “The Four Horsemen”, who quickly become Las Vegas’ hottest act after they shower 3.2 million euros from a Paris bank on their audience.
The confident and cocky “Horsemen” are brought in for questioning by brash and aggressive FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and his newbie sidekick, French Interpol agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent). The game of cat and mouse begins.
Unable to prove anything, Dylan and Alma turn to magical debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who serves as the film’s “peek behind the curtains” as he explains how the Horsemen pull off their magic tricks, but he seems more interested in seeing the “show” to its conclusion rather than actually helping the feds along the way.
Now You See Me is at its best when it’s pulling the wool over our eyes. The film’s tricks seem plausible enough to warrant a leap of faith in that a real magician could actually carry most of them out beyond the “magic” of the cinema. In fact, Bradley’s explanation of how the group pulled off the opening illusion is the film’s largest asset in that it makes everything else that happens all that much more believable even if we can’t explain it ourselves.
The narrative leaves you guessing as to the identity of the person pulling the strings, the mystery behind how the Horsemen pull off their tricks as well as the overall “Why?” of it all. Add to that the smug showmanship of the magical crew and the right actors in place and I was satisfactorily entertained even if the overall product is a little rough around the edges.
The cinematic depths within Now You See Me wades are shallow for certain, but Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt‘s screenplay kept me on my toes long enough to warrant not a single watch check over the course of the film’s 115 minute running time.
Eisenberg’s smug, fast-talking persona does begin to grate, Ruffalo’s loud-talking tough-guy act gets a little old and Laurent seemed a little out of place, though I couldn’t quite tell if that was a character flaw or her choice in performance. However, these are small quibbles in a film that doesn’t really warrant an extended examination.
Leterrier was the right guy to direct what amounts to a flashy magic show filled with misdirection and deception. His films such as The Transporter and Incredible Hulk were never deep mind probes and in that respect Now You See Me isn’t on the level playing field of Christopher Nolan‘s The Prestige, but it is a satisfying diversion that allows the audience to play along and take part in the fun.
