Now You See Me (2013)

Director: Louis Leterrier
Story: Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman
Music: Brian Tyler
Time: 125 minutes
Bottom-line: Now I see why this is a stupid film

When it comes to films about magic (or anything closely related to magic), I have very high expectations, because my benchmark for this genre is Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. So well, Louis Leterrier’s Now You See Me proved to be a major disappointment for me, thanks to the lousy acting, average storyline and the attempt to pack a truckload of “entertainment” within two hours, thereby compromising on other important aspects. “Look closely, because the closer you think you are, the less you will actually see” is the film’s tagline, and in my view, is should have been, “The more you expect from this film, the less you get”.

Eisenberg as Daniel Atlas

Harrelson as McKinney 

Four exceptional magicians, called the Four Horsemen: Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), Henly Reeves (Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Franco) perform street magic in different parts of the US. They are brought together by an unknown man. One year later, they perform in Las Vegas, and in one trick, they rob a bank in Paris by teleporting a man there and asking him to activate the air duct, thereby shifting the money from Paris to Las Vegas. The money is actually found to be missing, and the four magicians are arrested. After being investigated by Agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) and Alma Dray (Laurent), they are released due to lack of evidence. The agents decide to approach Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), an ex-magician who exposes other magicians’ tricks. What is the Horsemen’s actual purpose? Is there a fifth horseman who is aiding them? Who is actually chasing whom? Watch the film to find out...

Fisher as Henly Reeves

Franco as Jack Wilder

                                            First of all, too many characters! Well, all the characters played a role, and all of them were sort of important, but the point is that when you have 7-8 main characters, and you don’t develop even one of them, it sort of gets “stuffy”. Of course, if you say that films like Ocean’s Eleven didn’t have any character development either, that is because there was no need for it. Here, the twist in the end sort of makes it necessary. I feel that a twist ending (especially when it has something to do with the nature of a character) has a better impact on you when there are clues that help you guess what’s coming, but you still don’t, and you are like, “Oh! How did I miss that??”

Ruffalo as Agent Rhodes and
Laurent as Agent Alma Dray

Except for maybe Morgan Freeman and (surprisingly) Mark Ruffalo, the acting was horrible. Jesse Eisenberg’s fast and catchy dialogues worked well in The Social Network, but not here. Michael Caine has a small role as the Horsemen’s sponsor and insurance magnate, Arthur Tressler, and for the small role, his acting was good.  Woody Harrelson was okay, but I felt that Isla Fisher and Franco tried to be a bit too stylish in their roles, and hence, didn’t perform well.

Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley 

The technical aspects are where the film finds success. The score, visual effects and cinematography were excellent. So I am guessing the director tried to use these to cover up the film’s poor story-telling, but it didn’t work out. Now You See Me starts off well, and initially you are glued to the story because somehow people like films where a bunch of characters are brought together for some “mission”. You might even enjoy the entire film. But I watched it expecting perhaps a bit too much, and hence was disappointed. Some more focus should be given on character and plot development (perhaps a few clues leading to the twist ending), but if you just want to see some “cool” magic tricks even if the acting and story are not so good, then you can go ahead and watch the film. But for a really good film of this genre, I strongly recommend The Prestige.

My Rating: 2.5/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 50%