Now You See Me (2013) Directed by Louis Leterrier. Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson. IMDB says: “An FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money.”
The basic set up of Now You See Men is that a crack team of random middling magicians are brought together under mysterious circumstances to carry out a secret plan. A year later they are actually a very successful team, the Four Horsemen, who pull off an astonishing heist at a show in Vegas. This gets the police and Interpol on their trail to try to figure out how they pulled it off before they can succeed in their next grand illusion.
For a movie about magic though, Now You See Me is about half as clever as it should be. Because of the set ups to tricks, they are fairly telegraphed and not many of the shocking twists are very exciting. There’s also an issue of the Four Horsemen’s mission not carrying very much weight or stakes. It’s way too easy to claim to be helping the needy. That Robin Hood cause is just a bit too obtuse to really root for them (as bad as that sounds).
What you can root for is the gang’s playful banter. Easily the highlight of the movie is whenever Jesse Eisenberg or Woody Harrelson get to expose their comedic chops, whether they’re dissing each other or being questioned by police. That’s where the fun comes into play. It’s just too bad that Isla Fisher and Dave Franco were so underutilized since I enjoy both of their past comedic performances. The screenwriter could apparently only come up with nifty dialogue for half of the foursome. As far as the rest of the cast, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are just around to make you connect with their side characters based on everything else you’ve seen them in. Not much of interest to report for either of them here. I wish I had more to say about Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent since they do have sizable roles investigating the Four Horsemen, but their characters aren’t actually all that memorable and their storyline falls slack by the end.
The ensemble all together has a sufficient balance, and the movie tries to show you some elaborate tricks, but it just doesn’t all quite come together. It’s a decent ride though, and it actually does feature more than a few fun moments. I can’t completely write this one off but the movie also just flops a little more than is forgivable.
