Amazing, complex story of trickery and deception...

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2007)

1st watched 1/1/2007 - 9 out of 10(Dir-Christopher Nolan): Amazing, complex story of trickery and deception put together by a Director who appears to be becoming a master in this field, which he started in his first movie, Memento. Christopher Nolan starts off with a simple story of a man accused of the murder of another man. They both happen to be in the same field of magic and we're major competitors in this arena. We then are taken backwards to the events that led up to this supposed murder. This is where the movie becomes extremely complex and is driven by the wonderful subtle performances of everyone involved. This is one of those movies where you don't want to miss any points of dialogue because you're afraid you'll miss out on something important, and with Nolan, you will be. He is able to sustain a mostly dialogue-driven movie for over two hours and your mind is still racing as the final credits roll. The magicians', played by Hugh Jackman & Christian Bale, personal battles are the major focus which started when Jackman's character's wife is killed during a failed magic trick where he blames Bale's character. But also entering unto the scene is the idea of performing the ultimate illusion by possible using "real magic", which in this case is electricity re-directed to transpose a person from one place to another. This is being tested by a man named Tesla, played wonderfully by the rock star/actor David Bowie, as the government & Thomas Edison vehemently tries to pull the plug & funding to shutdown the experiments. This subplot was a personal revelation to me because of a song by a group coincidentally called Tesla, called "Edison's medicine", which suggests trickery & under-handed things being done so he could gain the rights to electricity. Anyway, back to the movie--- All of these elements are blended together so well that the only reason I didn't give the movie a 10 is because of the confusion at the end(wish was actually part of the fun of the movie, but could be distracting to some). It would amaze me if a better movie was made in 2006, but it probably won't win the Oscar because it's too thought-provoking, which is too bad. I will be anxiously awaiting another Christopher Nolan movie though, as I'm sure many other people are as well.