Now You See Me is a film about heists, magic and revenge... but the problem is the closer you look the less there is to see...
Four fiercely independent 'magicians', 'Mentalist' Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), card-sharp J Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eienberg), escapologist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and lock-picker Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are recruited by an unknown mentor to work together and bring their areas of expertise to a carefully-planned project. A year later in a major show in Vegas, these 'Four Horsemen' tell the audience that in front of their eyes, they will magic away the entire vault of money from a bank... in Paris. Lo and behold they do just that, scattering la loot to the Vegas crowd. Now an FBI team - fronted by Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent) - and Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) a retired showman who's making a living exposing other's tricks, all race to know what really happened. However it soon becomes clear that this is the first step in a more far-reaching campaign. What is the Horsemen's bigger plan and how are they managing to stay one step ahead at every turn? As Dylan and Alma race against the clock to keep their jobs and reputations, the media begins to watch the game of cat-and-ouse with increasing interest...
The problem is that while Now You See Me is a perfectly light, time-passing heist flick, it actually thinks it's The Usual Suspects and it becomes clear at just over the halfway mark that it's not even in the same ballpark. Whatever tricks it says it has up its sleeve, its reach just exceeds its grasp. This is a shame as the first half of the movie rattles along, looking like it will be an engaging ensemble piece; it gives us a lot of gloss, style and witty banter plus an 'angle' that looks like it might well deliver on several fronts. It's only as you begin to note how loosely the characters have been drawn - how little they evolve and how subserveant they are to the spectacle that you realise how much they've been wasted especially the supporting turns from Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine.
On a basic level, the film should appeal to fans of Leverage and Hustle and anyone who enjoys heist movies, but though it paints its neon hue on a much bigger canvas, it's not as finely tuned as either show. 'The closer you look, the less you'll see...' might be its boastful mantra, but it also echoes the plot and script... The film spends a lot of time throwing us a multitude of possibilities and red herrings as to what the bigger picture will turn out to be... but when we get certain reveals in turns out the only reason we might not have guessed is that they don't make a great deal of sense - and that most of the tricks can only be created in post-production rather than explained by plot. The secret of films like The Usual Suspects is that the climax is truly a pay-off to a puzzle, that you actively WANT to go back and watch it all again to see how the cogs and wheels and tricks got you to that point. Unfortunately in Now You See Me, a film all about the 'prestige' and little else, the audience reaction is more likely to be the feeling that the denouement was worked out on the day of filming after a coin-flip. One wonders how many different endings were shot and tried out ahead of release, as 90% of the film could remain unaffected .(Indeed the VERY final scene is so forced that it makes absolutely NO character-based sense whatsover).
The trailer promised much and for a good hour it looked like the film might deliver but sadly, Now You See Me turns out to be a glossy piece-work that relies on distraction to stop you spotting the seams rather than tricks of the trade... undemanding fun that could ahve been much more.
Now You See Me (12A) is released by Entertainment One and asks you to pick a card in cinemas from today...
Review score: 7 out of 10
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