Free The Prestige (2006) Trailer
PG-13 - 130 min - Drama, Mystery, Thriller - 20 October 2006
IMDb Rating : 8.4/10
Director : Christopher Nolan
Writers : Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Stars : Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine
A Nutshell Review: The Prestige
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Christopher Nolan can do no
wrong.
Teaming up again with his Batman Begins cast of Christian Bale and
Michael Caine, and joined with the Scoop team consisting of X-Men's
Wolverinie Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson, the stellar (eye candy)
cast already set tongues wagging as to whether they'll be able to live
up to the hype of Nolan's long awaited movie directly challenging the
other picture about Victorian magicians, The Illusionist.
The Prestige is the third act of any magic trick, with the first and
second acts being the Pledge and the Turn. And this movie lives up to
its namesake to a T. The way the movie plays out, it's like a huge
magic trick, with the audience waiting to see how it unfolds, getting
the suspicion on how it's done, but yet sitting through it thorough
engaged to discover how everything will be revealed and resolved. It
tells the story of how two magicians, fellow apprentices turned
unfortunate rivals, plod down the slow path of jealous obsession,
revenge, and the deliberate attempts to go at lengths to steal each
other's ideas, to go one up against the other, a fight in romance, life
and the long held passionate drive to discredit each other. There are
perfect explanations of the value of secrets, and how secrets can
sometimes be used as tools for deceit.
What I thought was valuable in the movie was the reinforcement of the
notion of how "magic" actually worked. Besides the better understanding
of the common body of scientific knowledge, things like having pretty
assistants to distract, and having planted staff amongst the audience,
somehow made me a sceptic to tricks and illusions, and try harder to
spot at which stage had things undergone a sleight of hand. More
importantly, it introduced me to the notion and importance of a loyal
engineer behind the scenes who designs elaborate contraptions solely
for the magician's use, and how having disloyal staff can indeed be
detrimental to any leaks of secrets.
And Michael Caine took on this engineering role as Cutter, responsible
for assisting Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) with loyalty and conviction
that they could, as a team, beat Christian Bale's Alfred Borden. I
thought the cast in general were superb, with Christian Bale leading
the charge. Hugh Jackman too showed that he could play a dark
character, as the two leads tackled their characters' theme of
sacrifice, arrogance, and ultimately redemption, especially for Rupert
Angier. I thought he did what he did towards the end was a kind of
penance to what happened in the beginning, hoping to kill two birds
with a single stone, to exact the sweetest revenge he could possibly
muster. What also was intriguing about the two lead characters was that
there is no right or wrong, no hero or villain. It's always a shade of
grey in what they do, and for Alfred Borden, I felt it's more for
survival and the provision for family, which is a strong subplot
running through the film. I just have to mention though, that Scarlett
Johansson being Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive, gets to play a flower
vase role here as a magician's assistant, though her role as the pawn
between the rivals added a little gravitas.
The atmosphere was set up great, and so were the costumes and sets. The
soundtrack was hauntingly mesmerizing, capturing the look and mood
appropriately. Look out too for David Bowie's appearance as a Serbian
scientist!
I was floored by the deftness of how Nolan weaved and juxtaposed the
non linear narrative so flawlessly. While the usual techniques is to
use placeholders, or flashback sequences, colours etc, here, time is so
fluid, but yet the audience will know precisely which era they're in,
without being explicitly told, or working too much of the noodle. You
just know, and it's just that feeling of being totally transparent with
time. Even though the movie clocked in at slightly more than 2 hours,
you don't feel its length at all.
At the end of the movie, one quote popped into mind: Misdirection -
what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes. Quite apt to
describe how things work out during the movie, or to describe in
general, Nolan 's films so far. That added richness to lift the movie
to a superior plane. Do yourself a favour, if there's one movie you
absolutely must watch this week, then Prestige must be your natural
choice. It's smart in delivery and slick in presentation. There is none
other.
P.S. Is it just me, or are notebooks a common feature in Nolan's
movies?
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