A mess

Rating: 4/10 (23 October 2006)

The movie starts out promisingly enough, dumping you in the middle of a story about an often vicious rivalry between two magicians. The setup flatters viewers' intelligence for a while, with some fancy gamesmanship and sleight of hand, literal and figurative, for them follow.
Unfortunately, it tosses away everything it had going for it. There's not enough emotional connection with either character to provoke concern about their fate--some momentary shocks, but nothing deeper. The pace slows down, so the plot becomes meandering and the viewer gets plenty of time to predict what scam is being run where. It would have taken a masterful conclusion by the time the movie ended to fully redeem the vapid tedium. There's an attempt to deliver one, but it fails miserably.
No complaints with the acting or production values. But simply not interesting.