Film: Now You See Me
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman
Director: Louis Letterier
Anyone can get ideas. Anyone. But it is the execution that defines the idea. Thomas Edison doesn’t have a gazillion patents because he thought up those ideas. It is because he made the ideas work. (And Nicola Tesla will say at least half of those were his ideas!) Anyone get a great idea for a movie, but very few can make it a great movie. Now You See Me has a great (and extremely visual) premise. It just needed better writers and director.
Four magicians (technically three and one mentalist), all solo acts, get a mysterious invitation. They become a huge act called The Four Horsemen. In their opening night in Las Vegas, they invite the audience to rob a bank with them. Guess what, they actually do, and, that too, a bank in Paris. The FBI and an Interpol agent are on their heels, as is a magician-turned-magic-revealer. Without proof, the suddenly famous Four Horsemen are free to work on their next show in New Orleans. This time, things do not go according to plan. Or do they?
The initial trick or illusion is a grand set-piece. We watch as wondrously as the audience watching the magic. The clueless FBI goes in search of Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), an ex-magician. Bradley spends a long time explaining how the heist/trick was done. That is when you look at the watch and realize that almost an hour has gone by and we have no idea where the movie is going. It’s all downhill from there.
We all want to be entertained. And a bunch of magicians pulling off heists, well, that entertains us because we do not have that much money and no one will go to such lengths to rob us! Even if the only intention of the movie was to show us five set pieces, we wouldn’t have minded so much. Instead, the movie tries to pretend it is so much and ends us being nothing concrete. From a magician’s tale to a heist film, to a cops and robbers flick to a revenge drama, with a little bit of almost supernatural thrown in, Now You See Me flounders and ends up as one big mess.
The actors are more than good. With so many big names almost sleepwalking through the movie it is an embarrassment of riches and also an embarrassment to the riches. Jesse Eisenberg, unfortunately, continues with his Woody Allenesque performance again. The other Woody, Harrelson, hams it up delightfully. Mark Ruffalo plays the nice clueless guy. Dave Franco seems a bit lost amongst the heavyweights while the girls, Isla Fisher and Melanie Laurent, are little more than decorative pieces. I swear Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine came for the ride just to catch up on Batman gossip!
The visual effects are good, and it is aided by the impressive photography and slightly frenetic editing. But nothing can offset the holes the screenplay plays around with. The direction is also concentrating on the visuals and the story is allowed to fall into a pit of its own making. Now You See Me falls into the category of Films That Could Have Been. It could have been any one of a bunch of different things, but sadly it ends up being short in every one.
