The Critic review of the movie “The Prestige”

Introduction:

Hello everyone... I’m Jeffery Aron and I am here to give you a critic review of the movie" The Prestige". This is psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan who is very well known for his mind boggling films such as Interstellar, Inception and etc.,

Cast:

Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier

Christian Bale as Alfred Borden

Michael Caine as John Cutter

Scarlett Johansson as Olivia

Rebecca Hall as Sarah Borden

David Bowie as Nikola Tesla

Plot:

The movie is about the rivalry between two young magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden ( Christian Bale) and it is based on the novel written by Christopher Priest in 1995.
Two friends and fellow magicians turn into bitter enemies after a sudden tragedy. As they devote themselves to this rivalry, they make sacrifices that bring them fame but with terrible consequences.
The movie starts as the movie the both of them starts their as assistant of a old, famous magician.During a water tank trick, Angier’s wife Julia fails to escape and drowns. Angier, devastated, accuses Borden of using a riskier knot, causing her death. The two become bitter enemies.
Angier and Borden launch their own magic careers. Borden develops a trick he calls the Transported Man, in which he appears to travel instantly between two wardrobes on opposite ends of the stage. Unable to discern Borden’s method, Angier hires a double, Gerald Root, to perform his own version of the trick. The imitation is a greater success, but Angier is dissatisfied, as he ends the trick hidden under the stage while Root basks in the applause.
Angier has his assistant Olivia spy on Borden to learn how he performs the Transported Man. However, Olivia falls in love with Borden and becomes his assistant. With her help, Borden sabotages Angier’s act. Confronted by Angier, Olivia gives him a copy of Borden’s encoded diary. Angier acquires the keyword to decode it, "TESLA", by threatening to kill Borden’s stage engineer, Fallon.
The thirst to avenge Borden drives him to America. There he meets Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the Alternating current.He demands him to design a machine for his transportation illusion trick. He accepts and completes it. But, Tesla is driven out of Colorado Springs by agents of his rival, Thomas Alva Edison, but has the machine delivered to Angier. He advises Angier to destroy it, saying it will bring him nothing but misery. But Angier didn’t pay heed to Tesla’s words.
Borden’s wife, Sarah, is driven to suicide by his contradictory personality. Afterwards, Borden tells Olivia that he never loved Sarah and that he loves her more. Unsettled, and tired of Borden and Angier’s feud, Olivia leaves. In London, Angier debuts the Real Transported Man using Tesla’s machine, appearing to teleport across the theater each night. He proclaimed that it’s not a mere illusion but it’s a wonder of science and it is beyond man’s imagination. Perplexed by the new trick, one night Borden sneaks backstage, only to witness Angier fall through a trapdoor and drown in a water tank, just as Julia did. Borden is discovered by Cutter and turned over to the police. Unable to prove his innocence, Borden is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
In prison, Borden is visited by a Lord Caldlow, accompanied by Borden’s daughter Jess. Caldlow is revealed to be Angier. In exchange for his secrets, Borden pleads with Angier to let his daughter go, but Angier isn’t interested and leaves with Jess as his ward. When Cutter realises that Angier is still alive, he is disgusted at Angier’s plan to discredit and kill Borden, but agrees to help dispose of Tesla’s machine. Borden is hanged for Angier’s murder.
Angier returns to the theater with Cutter, who ponders the agony of drowning while looking at several water tanks that Angier has stored there. Cutter leaves, acknowledging a stranger who enters and shoots Angier: Borden. Angier discovers that "Borden" was an identity shared by identical twins. The brothers performed the original Transported Man together; in life, when one was "Borden", the other was disguised as "Fallon". The surviving twin loved Sarah while his brother had loved Olivia.
Borden laments that everything Angier did was for nothing, but Angier denies this, saying that witnessing the audience’s amazement had been the goal all along. Angier dies, dropping his lantern and setting the theater alight. Borden leaves to pick up Jess at Cutter’s workshop, but as he leaves he realises Angier’s sacrifice; while waiting for Borden to enter his trap each performance night, Angier would be duplicated by Tesla’s machine, while the original would drown in a tank beneath the stage - the water tanks all hold dead Angiers.

“See, sacrifice, Robert. That’s the price of a good trick. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”-Alfred Borden.

Themes and Character Sketch:

Angier is portrayed by the director as a classy, elitist showman whereas the Borden is shown as working-class magician who gets his hands dirty. The director doesn't depicts anyone as good or evil.
Scarlett Johansson had done a fabulous his here. Seriously, we had seen her riding bikes and fighting with antogonists but this one is really a challenging role to play but he she excells in it.
Each and every character had their own shade, depth. The arc of every character was good. Enough and only required space was given to each character.
The director handles Cinematic liberty in a awesome manner. Actually, this is periodic movie and story runs on 1980. He portrays not only the rivalry between two magicians but also between two scientists of that time, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison.

Pros:

First, everyone in the movie had done their job perfectly. Infact, every scene was live and make the audience feel. Secondly, The screenplay was well engaged and there no glitches and lags so that audience can't get their eyes off.Thanks to the screenplay by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, it made the audience get engaged to the movie. Each and every scene had continuity and it was impressive. The screenplay was unpredictable and made the audience sit at the edge of the seat.
The visuals across the movie was nice and good.
Kudos to the cinematographer, Wally Pfister.

Cons:

There are no major cons here but it does have some minor cons. First, background music was not used well . If it was used, the movie would have been even more flavoured and engaging. Second, the first 20-30 mins, doesn't seems more engaging but after 40- 45 mins the story begins and starts to be interesting.

Final Verdict:

If u ask whether this movie worth a watch, I would say not once but twice or even thrice. This story is too complicated so u need to watch it twice to understand it clearly. This is a awesome movie with a fabulous screenplay and I can assure that this film will surprise you with various twists.

Rating : 4.5/5

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn’t. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret... but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".