Now You See Me

Film Data

Title: Now You See Me

Director: Louis Leterrier

Date of Release: May 31, 2013

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Budget: $75,000,000

Gross: $117,698,894

Rating: PG-13

Production Company: Summit Entertainment

Runtime: 115 Minutes

Synopsis

            This movie begins by introducing the four main characters who are all magicians being recruited by a stranger in a hoodie; Daniel Atlas (Jessie Eisenberg) Merritt Mckinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). They are all sent to an apartment where they discover the blueprints to a device that can launch their careers as magicians.

            Fast-forward a year. The four magicians have a show in Las Vegas in which they call themselves “The Four Horsemen”. Sponsored by Arthur Tresslet (Michael Caine). Their last trick will be trying to rob a bank. They randomly choose a member of the audience and teleport him to his bank in France, suddenly money shows up in the Las Vegas arena while the bank’s safe back in France is found empty.

            FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Vargas (Melanie Laurent) are brought in to investigate the case. They bring the magicians down for questioning, but come up with nothing that will tie them to the crime- the only thing they can come up with is magic and that’s not valid- so therefore, the four horsemen are released.

            Dylan and Alma meet up with Thaddeas Bradley (Morgan Freeman), a member of the Las Vegas audience and an ex magician who now works on revealing other magicians tricks. He easily explains how the bank trick was done- turns out the French man was hypnotized and wasn’t randomly picked, he was “teleported” to an identical bank safe set right under the stage. According to Thaddeaus, this was all part of a grander trick the Four Horsemen were planning, they fly out to New Orleans to see the magicians’ next show. Meanwhile, Arthur Tressler offers Thaddeus money for him to back off and leave the four horsemen alone.

            The four horseman have their show in New Orleans and for their last trick they invite Arthur to the stage and empty his bank account, giving the money to members of the audience who had been denied insurance claims from hurricane Katrina by Arthur’s company. Once again, the police try arresting the Four Horsemen but they escape.

            Back in an apartment, Alma tells Dylan of a magician’s secret society “The Eye”; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. She tells him of a magician that Thaddeus debunked that later failed at an underwater trick and died- his body was never recovered. Arthur hires Thaddeus to expose the magicians in their final act.

            Throughout this whole time, the magicians have been following the man in the hoodie’s instructions and as they prepare for their last performance things get intense in a police chase leaving Jack dead (He didn’t really die, this was another trick by the magicians in order to get him to break into a safe without being caught)

            The team rush to where they believe the four horsemen are going to hit next (a safe) but it turns out that they were one step behind once again leading Dylan to believe that there is someone working with the four horsemen in this case.

            The four horsemen escape from being caught for their last performance and the money from the stolen safe is found in Thaddeus’ car. The FBI arrests him. Dylan goes to visit Thaddeus in prison, and Thaddeus claims that he has been framed. He then starts putting pieces of Jack’s car chase together and comes to the realization that Dylan was the one who planed the whole thing.

            Dylan meets up with the four horsemen, and they are all in shock that he is the mysterious hooded man. The four of them are initiated into The Eye.

            Back in France, we see Alma and Dylan. Turns out that Dylan is the son of the magician who drowned. They both have feelings for each other so therefore; Alma doesn’t turn Dylan in to the police.

Comments:

            When I first picked out this movie to watch I thought it was going to be a dumb film about magic but boy was I proved wrong. One thing that stands out to me about this movie is the amazing cinematography. From CGI trick shots to lens flare, this movie had it all. During scenes with the magicians performing tricks, there were many camera spin shots to show the viewer all sides to the trick as if they were actually seeing it live- yet; we were still fooled by the trick. The film had a very retro and supernatural feel to it, and after some research I found out that it was shot on celluloid with anamorphic lenses, giving it a very vintage look (rogerrebert.com).

            One thing I love more than movies, is music. The musical score for Now You See Me (created by Brian Tyler) does an amazing job in setting the mood to the movie, without being too distracting, it blended perfectly into the background during intense scenes making the viewer’s mood change according to what was happening in the movie.

            Overall, this movie is a brilliant mix of great cinematography, music, and witty one liners by many of the characters.

Citations: 

"Now You See Me." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1670345/>.