Now You See Me (2013)

An F.B.I. 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.

Director:

Louis Leterrier

Writers:

Ed Solomon (screenplay), Boaz Yakin (screenplay)

Stars:

Jesse Eisenberg, Common, Mark Ruffalo

1 win & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jesse Eisenberg	...	J. Daniel Atlas
Mark Ruffalo	...	Dylan Rhodes
Woody Harrelson	...	Merritt McKinney
Isla Fisher	...	Henley Reeves
Dave Franco	...	Jack Wilder
Mélanie Laurent	...	Alma Dray
Morgan Freeman	...	Thaddeus Bradley
Michael Caine	...	Arthur Tressler
Michael Kelly	...	Agent Fuller (as Michael J. Kelly)
Common	...	Evans
David Warshofsky	...	Cowan
José Garcia	...	Etienne Forcier
Jessica Lindsey	...	Hermia (as Jessica C. Lindsey)
Caitriona Balfe	...	Jasmine Tressler
Stephanie Honoré	...	Atlas Groupie

Storyline

Four magicians each answer a mysterious summons to an obscure address with secrets inside. A year later, they are the Four Horsemen, big time stage illusionists who climax their sold out Las Vegas show with a bank apparently robbed for real. This puts agents Dylan Rhodes of the FBI and Alma Dray of Interpol on the case to find out how they did it. However, this mystery proves difficult to solve even with the insights of the professional illusion exposer, Thaddeus Bradley. What follows is a bizarre investigation where nothing is what it seems with illusions, dark secrets and hidden agendas galore as all involved are reminded of a great truth in this puzzle: the closer you look, the less you see.

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Plot Keywords:

magician | heist | con artist | woman in bra | car full of money | 

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Taglines:

Look closely, because the closer you think you are, the less you will actually see

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for language, some action and sexual content

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA France

Language:

English French

Release Date:

31 May 2013 (USA)

Also Known As:

Now You See Me

Filming Locations:

Orpheum Theater - 842 South Broadway, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$75,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$29,350,389, 2 June 2013, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$117,723,989

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$351,723,989

Company Credits

Production Co:

Summit Entertainment,K/O Paper Products,SOIXAN7E QUIN5E

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min 125 min (extended edition)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS Dolby Atmos Dolby Surround 7.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After The Four Horsemen get arrested, Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson) tells the F.B.I. Agent, "There's no shame for a man to wear a dress." This is a reference to J. Edgar Hoover, long-time Director of the F.B.I., who was revealed to be a cross-dresser after his death.

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Goofs

At 1:19:00 when Cowan is briefing Evans, Fuller, Rhodes and Dray about the paperwork Rhodes pulled out of the car before it blew up, Cowan mentions the "trigger word". In the very next scene where they are trying to find the safe, Cowan mentions the "trigger word" again, but this time Evans is activated and begins "playing the violin".

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Quotes

Merritt McKinney: When I first met you, I thought you were kind of a... dick.
Henley Reeves: And?
Merritt McKinney: No, no. That's it.
J. Daniel Atlas: That's very nice. I'm touched.
Merritt McKinney: Yeah, just from the heart.
J. Daniel Atlas: Well, I didn't say where I was touched.

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Crazy Credits

About halfway through the closing credits a scene is shown where the four horsemen arrive in the desert at an abandoned, dilapidated amusement park in Las Vegas. Appears in both the Blu-Ray Edition and the iTunes Extended Cut.

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Connections

Featured in Great MoVie Mistakes (2013)

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Soundtracks

Entertainment
Written by Thomas Mars (as Thomas Pablo Croquet), Christian Mazzalai, Laurent Brancowitz (as Laurent Mazzalai), Deck D'Arcy (as Frederic Jean Joseph Moulin)
Performed by Phoenix
Courtesy of Glassnote Records

User Reviews

Weak script

Now You See Me could have been a good movie if only the writers team, or should we say the lame duck team, took the trouble to do their job correctly.

The story is just a big, little clear catch-all, riddled, from end to end, with quite flagrant incoherences, and punctuated by, probably, one of the worst twists ever. Indeed, this twist is ridiculous because totally unbelievable, it doesn't produce any effect on the viewer, but most seriously it instantly annihilates the credibility of the film as a whole ! And it seems like a dream when, just before, Morgan Freeman serves us up with a totally absurd and unrealistic demonstration... having to explain an outcome, above all in such a didactic and unsubtle way proves well that the script doesn't hold water.

This quite incredible failure of the story inevitably cripples the movie, which anyway only possesses two assets that are its dynamism and its cast, except the unbearable Mélanie Laurent who makes one grammatical mistake every three sentences and seems to be reciting her lines more than anything else, and Jesse Eisenberg who seems stuck in his Zuckerberg role, mumbling all the time. As for the cinematography, it isn't fundamentally bad but very cliché — as the soundtrack — with, for example, a lot of circus shots, a technique Leterrier used and abused of, apparently as little inspired as his writers.