Substantial style but what's it all about Alfie? 77.5%

Rating: 8/10 (20 August 2013)

Fortunately the answer to my headline question is provided in the movie. I was tempted to headline this review as "The closer you look the more you see" as the opposite is often asserted in this movie concerning magic...i.e. "The closer you look the less you see".
Anyway, the plot of this movie concerns a group of disparate magicians who are brought together by a mysterious person and instructed to follow directions without question. These directions involve making money disappear, which leads to police interest in their activities.
There are many herrings provided in this movie. It would be inaccurate to say, I think, that you can deduce the identity of the mystery organiser but the movie does often throw out little titbits which are fun to make you surmise who knows more than they are letting on. I was half expecting a revelation a la "The usual suspects" as to who the mystery mastermind was. In any case, that revelation came as a surprise to me. Of some consolation to me was that I guessed (or at least was open to the possibility) of how the final heist in the movie was achieved, no doubt thanks to a little titbit on how a previous magic trick in the movie was accomplished...but, thinking more about that latter trick, I doubt that it would actually work in the way you see it in the movie! The closer you look, the more you see it doesn't stack up!
Maybe it was on "At the movies" where I heard the suggestion that "Now you see me" is structured like a magic trick...all misdirection and sleight of hand. Not sure that that is right. It seems pretty conventional...insofaras all movies utilise camera angles and editing and plotting to create an illusion of coherent narrative. These movie tricks make it seem that something extraordinary is occurring whereas if you pulled back, you might see, for instance, that a very dangerous looking car stunt was actually very safe and only camera angles and editing made it look life threatening.
Like I said initially, I was inclined to headline this review as "The closer you look the more you see". By that I mean the movie has plot holes which make the illusion disintegrate once you analyse them. One would think that the use of captions in the movie would be a sign of objectivity, but it seems to me, from memory, that even they misdirect...e.g. that scene early on in the movie where a French man takes part in an onstage magic trick. The caption used for that scene seemed a quite obvious case of misdirection (but I'm relying on my memory here as to what those captions assert).
To the extent that I have a 'problem' with this movie is the very Hollywood like leaps faith required to make the story gel...hence my comment that the closer you look at things the more they fail to make sense. Maybe a movie like "The game" is another example of this...there is a certain sense of implausibility when 'going with the flow' of this movie. The illusion is quite fun though, once you focus on the 'big' picture...and not get bogged down in details like how anybody could have the ability of foresight required by the plot of the movie.
My headline also states that this movie has substantial style...a play on "style over substance". That would be my only quibble with this movie and why it does't score higher...since it doesn't hang together logically that much, you really want the principle magicians at the heart of this movie to sweep you off your feet with their charisma and make you swoon. They don't quite make you forget the artifice of this movie but they do display wit on occasion...but a bit more chutzpah would have been nice. Maybe it's also a pity that later on in the movie it becomes clear that the magicians have actually crossed the line between seeming to be criminals and actually qualifying as such.