FILM OF THE WEEK

Now you see me (12A)

Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Melanie Laurent, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Nothing is what it seems in Louis Letterier’s high-stakes game of cat and mouse between four crowd-pleasing Las Vegas illusionists and the FBI. Every narrative twist could be a doublebluff, every failure a carefully orchestrated diversion and every flirtation a calculated exercise in audience manipulation. The prologue introduces us to close-up conjurer Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), escapologist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), mentalist Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and street magician Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). Each performer receives a Tarot card bearing the same information: “March 29, 4:44pm 45 East Evan St. NY, NY” As instructed, the quartet arrives at an apartment in New York, where a dazzling light show reveals an illusion that will stun the world. One year later, Daniel, Henley, Merrit and Jack are reborn as The Four Horsemen. In front of a live audience, they choose an audience member at random and magically transport their stooge to a bank in Paris to raid millions from the vault. With their sponsor Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and renowned sceptic Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) watching in the aisles, Daniel, Henley, Merrit and Jack pull off this seemingly impossible feat. Within hours, they are under arrest and facing interrogation by FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo). Ignore the gaping plot holes and Now You See Me is a lot of fun. The script trades heavily on the sniping banter between the four magicians, who always seem to be one step ahead of Rhodes and the authorities. Action scenes are orchestrated at full pelt including an explosive car chase and a night-time race across rooftops. The film’s pivotal nugget of information becomes blindingly obvious well before Letterier engineers the big reveal, but it doesn’t greatly temper our enjoyment, simply giving us more time to piece everything together.

Rating: ***