Sort of Ocean's 11 Meets Houdini: An Enjoyable Flick About the Power of Illusion

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2016)

Is magic real? Maybe. However for centuries there are those who don't have one ounce of true magical ability in the literal sense of the word but are able to convince others they do, usually audiences willing to suspend their "disbelief". These people are called "magicians", and magicians have been performing before amazed crowds since Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the present. The film in question "Now You See Me", the first half of the phrase "Now you see me, now you don't", takes us into the world of magicians. The main performers, four diverse magicians of mediocre talents, have been brought together to become the Four Horsemen, I assume their name deriving from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as labeled in the Book of Revelation.
Four different magicians have been summoned by Tarot cards for an unknown purpose: Merritt McKinney, whose card is the Hermit, a hypnotist and mentalist (Woody Harrelson), Daniel "Danny" Atlas, whose card is the Lover, an arrogant illusionist (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves, whose card is the High Priestess, an escape-artist similar to Houdini (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder, Tarot card Death, a sleight of hand illusionist and street magician (Dave Franco). At the beginning of the film they were magicians who performed spontaneously for small crowds. Through the Tarot cards, they are summoned by an unknown "benefactor" and eventually financed by Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), an insurance magnate. In a year, they evolve from unknown street magicians to a nationally-known headline act, the Four Horsemen. They perform in large venues in Las Vegas and New York.
Their escapades catch the eye of FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and U.S. law enforcement when they appeared to have enacted a magical heist from a bank in France. Interpol in Europe also gets involved, and they send a young inexperienced agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent), a French criminal researcher who has interest in the occult. As the stunts of the Four Horsemen keep getting larger, involving ever-larger sums of money, Alma and Rhodes find themselves battling a formidable foe. The Horsemen use their magic "act" as a kind of misdirection, and the FBI and Interpol always seem one to two steps behind them. The FBI starts to question the motives of Alma in part because they wander if there is a "fifth horseman" as yet unknown but pulling many of the strings.
Also on their trail is Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), a modern-day skeptic whose show and DVD's expose "magic" fraud, similar to Houdini's exposing of séance frauds in the early 20th century. Thirty years previous to the events of the film, Thaddeus exposed another magician, Lionel Shrike. His career was all but ruined at the hands of Thaddeus, until he decided to engage in a comeback by attempting to escape from a safe thrown into the Hudson River. He never escaped and was presumed dead. As a result, the "magic" community has had an adversarial relationship with Thaddeus. FBI agent Rhodes tries to ingratiate himself to Thaddeus, hoping the exposer of magic fraud will help them capture the Four Horsemen. The game becomes a kind of cat and mouse in which Rhodes is bent on exposing and arresting the Four Horsemen and using Thaddeus as a kind of double-agent. However, Thaddeus appears less than impressed with the FBI, and although he's not entirely on the side of the Four Horsemen, he seems to admire their tricks. He also has his own agenda, wanting footage for his upcoming show.
A fun-filled, action-packed heist-thriller with a certain amount of intelligence. The acting is superb, and the cast of the Four Horsemen are diverse enough we buy into their little eccentricities. Freeman makes an excellent Thaddeus Bradley, constantly pointing out the ineptitude of the FBI. And Caine is a good billionaire magnate who stays somewhat behind the scenes to finance the money-making endeavors of the Four Horsemen. During the film, different miss-directions are explained by Freeman which is half the fun. A good escapist film. But don't try the stunts at home!