Film review: Now You See Me (12A) - 6/10

Nothing is what it seems in Louis Letterier’s high-stakes game of cat and mouse between four crowd-pleasing Las Vegas illusionists and the FBI.
By The Newsroom
Published 4th Jul 2013, 10:38 BST
Now You See MeNow You See Me
Now You See Me

Every narrative twist could be a double-bluff, every failure a carefully orchestrated diversion and every flirtation a calculated exercise in audience manipulation.

Screenwriters Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt hold all the aces and for the opening 30 minutes, their collective sleight of hand dazzles and intrigues in equal measure. Now You See Me sets up the tricks, engineers them with elan and coolly reveals the ingenious method behind the on-stage madness.

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Alas, when it comes to the grand final illusion which takes up most of the second hour, director Letterier doesn’t play entirely fair. He untethers the plot from plausibility and logic, allowing everything to teeter risibly on coincidence, physical improbability and outrageous good fortune. We might just forgive the script its outlandishness if a tongue was wedged firmly in cheek, but the film is deadly serious about its jiggery pokery.

The prologue introduces us to close-up conjurer Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), escapologist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), mentalist Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and street magician Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), who are successful in their own fields, dazzling small audiences with their showmanship.

Each performer receives a Tarot card bearing the same information: “March 29, 4:44pm 45 East Evan St. NY, NY”

As instructed, the quartet arrives at an apartment in New York, where a dazzling light show reveals an illusion that will stun the world. One year later, Daniel, Henley, Merrit and Jack are reborn as The Four Horsemen.

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In front of a live audience, they choose an audience member at random and magically transport their stooge to a bank in Paris to raid millions from the vault. With their sponsor Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and renowned sceptic Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) watching in the aisles, Daniel, Henley, Merrit and Jack pull off this seemingly impossible feat.

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