Now You See Me (2013)

The first rule of magic is to look closely, and that the closer you look, the more you’re fooled. Now You See Me makes this contradiction the operating principle of the entire film. A bank robbery staged on a dazzling stage interlocks with the pursuit of a detective chasing the trick, and the audience is played in the palm of a hand just like the crowd inside the screen. There have been many films about magic, but few that make the audience itself the final target.

What it’s about — A magic-robber crew that scatters money over the seats

Four street magicians receive mysterious invitations and gather in one place. A year later, they have become a flashy show troupe called the Four Horsemen and take the stage in Las Vegas. And during the performance, they pull off the impossible feat of robbing a bank vault in Paris and scattering the money over the audience. FBI agent Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma (Mélanie Laurent) take on the case, but not knowing the principles of magic, they can only stay one step behind. Add Thaddeus (Morgan Freeman), a former magician who makes a living exposing the secrets of magic, and who knows what is constantly overturned.

Direction — A show of speed that gives you no room to scrutinize

Louis Leterrier rolls the screen without a moment’s rest. The camera crosses the stage following the trajectory of a single thrown card, and the performance scenes are edited with a rhythm like watching a real magic show. This sense of speed is the film’s greatest weapon and at the same time its weakness. Thanks to the fast flow, the audience has no chance to scrutinize the flaws in the tricks, but for the same reason, calmly chewing it over makes the under-explained parts stand out. The twist of the ending is satisfying, too, but whether it perfectly matches the earlier scenes remains in question.

Even so, this film knows exactly what it’s selling. Its attitude of putting the pleasure of the show itself ahead of logical completeness is clear, and that one promise it keeps to the end. The construction of alternating flashy stage direction with the urgency of the chase fills two hours with no room for boredom.

Performance — An ensemble moving between sly humor and gray ambiguity

The actors’ chemistry is another pleasure of this film. Jesse Eisenberg plays the confident leader magician slyly with his signature rapid-fire speech, and Woody Harrelson adds smug humor to the role of a hypnotist. Dave Franco and Isla Fisher also bring energy to the team from their own places. The one who anchors the center, though, is Mark Ruffalo. He portrays, without overdoing it, the frustration and tenacity of a detective who is always one step late. Morgan Freeman, despite not having much screen time, dominates the screen every time he appears, deftly handling a gray figure who keeps the audience guessing about whom to trust.

What the film says — The audience is the final target

There’s a line this film repeats: the closer you look, the less you see. Now You See Me says that controlling the direction of the gaze is the very essence of deception. While the audience’s mind is occupied on one side, the truly important thing always happens elsewhere. This principle applies not only to magic but to the film itself. While we had our gaze stolen by the flashy stage, the core of the story was quietly hidden in another place. So at the moment the ending’s identity is revealed, the audience realizes that they too were one of the spectators.

Ratings and reception

The IMDb rating is 7.2 out of 10, a decent figure for an entertainment film. The Rotten Tomatoes freshness stopped at half, 51 percent, with criticisms mainly scrutinizing the plausibility of the tricks dominating. The Metacritic score is 50 out of 100. By the scores alone it looks lukewarm, but the box-office performance and audience word of mouth ran far hotter, ultimately leading to a sequel. It’s a case that shows the typical fate of an entertainment film, one you come to enjoy even knowing its weaknesses.

Verdict

It’s not that you watch it unaware of the gaps in its logic. This film has the power to make you willingly let yourself be fooled even while knowing. The skill of unpacking the subject of magic with visual pleasure and the tension of a chase is deft, and above all, the conceit of making the audience the final target is clever. The satisfaction of having watched a well-constructed show is clear, so it’s worth four stars.

Recommended for

• Those who like stories where twists and tricks are overturned again and again
• Those who want to enjoy flashy spectacle like a magic show
• Those who prioritize fast-paced entertainment over plausibility