a strong piece of cinematic legerdemain

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2006)

Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige" is a finely crafted piece of cinematic presdedigitation - a tale of two master magicians in turn-of-the-century London whose bitter rivalry leads to deception, dismemberment and eventually murder.
Robert Angier and Alfred Borden are the two up-and-coming magicians who part ways when Alfred is deemed to be partly responsible for the death of Robert's beloved wife (while functioning as a magician's assistant) in one of their acts on stage. Consumed with the desire for revenge and spurred on by professional jealousy, Robert spends the remainder of his days working to undermine and destroy Alfred's career and life.
With the help of some first-rate artists on both sides of the camera, Nolan (along with his brother and co-writer Jonathan) has fashioned a fine looking work from Christopher Priest's popular novel. The solid production values - meticulous period details beautifully enhanced by Wally Pfiser's glowing cinematography - offer a compelling backdrop for the human drama at the movie's core. More than anything else, the film is a tribute to the stagecraft inherent in the art of magic making. The movie provides not only a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into how that magic is made, but works its own sleight-of-hand trickery on the audience with its complex, multi-level time structure and its I-never-saw-that-coming, turnabout ending.
The performances by Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, and David Bowie are all top notch, with Bale and Jackman, in particular, getting to display some of their acting chops in the lead roles.
On the slightly negative side, the film might have been more successful had it remained entirely in the realm of the real world of magic making and resisted the temptation of turning to science fiction to help move its plot along. Still, that's a minor quibble about a movie that delivers the goods on so many levels of entertainment.