The first time I saw a trailer for this, I fell in love. I love magic, I love heist films, I love several of the actors. So a movie with good actors playing magicians who rob banks? Oh, man, I'm so totally in. I was sure this was going to be my #1 film of the year, and hoped it would be one of my favorites, period. I'm sorry to say that it is neither, but it's still pretty good.
The story is an interesting one. Four magicians (a mentalist played by Woody Harrelson, an escape artist played by Isla Fisher, and two sleight-of-hand guys played by Jesse Eisenberg and Dave Franco) set up a big show in Vegas, during the course of which they rob a bank in Paris and shower the audience with the loot. The FBI and Interpol are after them, but of course they don't know how the trick was done. The quartet give two more shows and pull of two other big-time heists, each time giving the money to the audience, and then at the end we find out who's behind the heists and why he's doing it.
There are some problems with the film. A few plot points are pretty convenient. Some of the magic tricks are pretty clearly impossible without the use of CGI; I would rather they had stuck to actual stage magic. And Michael Caine, the wealthy man backing the magicians, just kind of...disappears. Not in a magic way, just in a “the writer forgot about him” way.
Also, the characterization is a little thin. None of these characters are particularly memorable. It seems that director Louis Leterrier and his writers (Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt, and Ed Solomon) were very caught up in the way the plot was moving, and didn't want to slow down to develop everyone. Instead, they hired a very good cast and trusted them to put more into the roles than what was actually on the page. To be fair, I think it worked pretty well; the four magicians (unfortunately given the terribly clichéd name “The Four Horsemen”) are all very likeable, and you end up wishing you could spend more time with all of them. Harrelson in particular doesn't get anything like enough screen time, and Fisher spends a lot of time just looking pretty, but both have their moments. Franco is supposed to be the clear #4 behind the other three, but actually he gets some of the best bits, especially the ridiculously fun takedown of Ruffalo and his partner when they raid the Horsemen's apartment. Eisenberg stands out among the four. He is playing basically the opposite of the character he played in Zombieland, which is interesting, given that everybody says he's a one-note actor. Anyway, if the point is to leave your audience wanting more, those four people did a damned good job.
A little more time is spent on the FBI agent leading the investigation (Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo). As an actor I like him more than any of the magicians, but his character isn't quite as interesting. And then there's Mélanie Laurent as the Interpol agent working with him. I suspect that once I've seen more of her work she's going to be one of my favorite actors, but prior to this I'd only seen her in Inglourious Basterds. She was magnificent in that, and was the biggest draw in this cast for me. And, you know, she did a fine job, but there just wasn't a lot there for her. Although she had more screen time than anyone but Ruffalo, her character was a little flat. Like Ruffalo, she was overshadowed by the magicians, and it's kind of too bad we didn't see more of the Four and less of the Law. Still, both are very charming actors, and I'm not complaining about them too much.
Caine is Caine; he can't do a bad job. Morgan Freeman is a surprise. I've gotten so used to seeing him play wise, kind old men that it took me a while to realize that he's the villain in this. I kept thinking, “Well, if they want me to like him just because of who he is, in spite of his asshattery, they've badly misjudged me.” I was halfway through the movie before I realized, no, I'm NOT supposed to like him. So if I'm going to name a cast member who confounded my expectations, it's got to be him, and the final resolution of his story is pretty rewarding; that's a good scene.
So all the actors are somewhat underserved but do good jobs anyway, in the service of keeping a fairly intricate plot moving. It's quite a good plot, as well; sure, it's implausible, but didn't we expect a story about magicians robbing banks to be a bit implausible? And Leterrier deserves a lot of credit for his direction: the film looks and sounds great, and moves very, very fast. The closest it comes to getting bogged down is when the Four have a brief, out-of-nowhere moment of doubt just before the last show, but it resolves itself quickly into Franco's best scene, the one I mentioned before. There were a few occasions where I was thinking, "Whoah, Louis, stop moving the camera around so much, let us see what's happening," but mostly I was pleased with his work.
I think this is a movie that tells you something about yourself when you watch it. It tells you what kind of movie watcher you are. Some people can lose themselves in a movie; they can suspend disbelief and just go along for the ride. Others can't; they analyze each scene, pick at each plot hole. I happen to be the former, and so for me this movie was a good time. I'm not blind to the holes in it, but they don't ruin the film for me. Most of the people writing about this movie on the IMDb message boards, on the other hand, appear to be of the latter type. There's an awful lot of haters on there. I'm not saying those people are bad, or stupid, or wrong, but I'm glad I'm not one of them.
BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: I really like the interrogation scenes. Harrelson and Eisenberg really shine there; I love the bit where Eisenberg tosses the handcuffs onto Ruffalo. On the other hand, that really shows up what I was saying earlier about the magicians not getting enough screen time: why didn't we get to see the interrogations of Fisher and Franco? That would have been perfect.
WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: No particular moment. There isn't really anything I dislike about this film; there's just a sort of general, mild disappointment. It's an entertaining movie, but I have to think that with a little more polish on the script, some holes plugged and loose ends tied up, a few more character moments here and there, it could have been great. It was a very good time, and I liked it very much, but as I said at the start, I really wanted to love it.
PUNCH THE AIR MOMENT: There isn't one. There really should be. How could they not include a punch the air moment?
SCORE: 7/10. A pretty low seven, but still a seven.
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