Four magicians—Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson)—are brought together by a mysterious benefactor and, one year later, perform in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen" sponsored by Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), an insurance magnate. During one of their performances, the Four Horsemen invite a member of the audience to help them in their next trick: robbing a bank. The man is apparently teleported to his bank in Paris, where he activates an airduct which vacuums up the money and showers it onto the crowd in Las Vegas.
FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is called to investigate the theft and is partnered with Interpol Agent Alma Vargas (Mélanie Laurent). They interrogate the Four Horsemen, but release them when no explanation for the theft can be found other than magic. Rhodes then meets Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), an ex-magician who makes money by revealing the secrets behind other magicians' tricks. Bradley was in the audience and deduced that the Four Horsemen stole the money weeks before, and manipulated the audience into believing it happened in real time.
Rhodes, Vargas and Bradley attend the Four Horsemen's next performance in New Orleans. The group's finale involves their emptying Tressler's bank account and distributing it to the audience, which comprises people whose insurance claims had been denied or reduced by Tressler's company. Rhodes attempts to arrest the Four Horsemen, but they escape with help from audience members who were hypnotized to tackle whoever next yelled "Freeze". An infuriated Tressler hires Bradley to expose and humiliate the Four Horsemen in their next performance. Later, while researching the Four Horsemen's background, Vargas learns about rumors of a secret society of magicians called "The Eye" and suggests to a skeptical Rhodes the case might be connected to a magician whom Bradley once exposed, and was so humiliated that he attempted a dangerous underwater stunt and drowned.
Before the Four Horsemen's last performance in New York City, Rhodes and Vargas locate the group's hideout and confront Wilder there. Wilder attempts to escape in a stolen car, but it flips and explodes. Rhodes and Vargas learn that the Four Horsemen are targeting a particular safe, which is under the surveillance of another FBI team which has taken over the case. They intercept the safe in route to 5 Pointz, but find it empty. The ability of the Four Horseman to continually outwit the FBI leads Rhodes to suspect that there must be a fifth member of the team, potentially Vargas or Bradley...
The pacing of this movie is rather quick with a good mix of action, suspense and magic shows. In particular, I liked the execution rather sleek which fits in well with the image of high-class magic shows which the Four Horsemen were putting up. It can get boring if the movie was all about magic shows and having the truth shoved into your face directly after but the film tried to weave in these illusions and revelations as smoothly as possible thus I thought it kept me engaged throughout the film without "switching off mentally". The ending was rather unexpected in a way but I still like it.
As for the acting, the Four Horsemen all had their chances to shine and I especially liked the sharp and fast-paced dialogue which brought out their character traits quite easily. Daniel clearly thought that he had something more superior than the rest and was very confident but in front of Henley, he seemed unsure of how he should behave to get into her good books or rather to get her attention. Henley on the other hand, clearly bore a grudge against Daniel for saying something he shouldn't have but there seemed to be something ambiguous going on between them too. At the same time, Jack's sense of humour clearly got on Daniel's nerves especially when Jack was seen talking to Henley and Daniel didn't seem to be able to fit in. Merritt seemed a bit under-explored in the film but he's one resourceful kid who clearly is smart enough to warrant his place in the team.
On the other hand, the relationship between Dylan Rhodes and Alma Vargas seemed a bit hurried and unnatural though because they were clearly at each other's throats in the beginning but things started to get a bit ambiguous on the plane ride. Granted that the story took place over a short period of time, I get the reason why they had to be shipped as lovers. When it got to the last magic show, Dylan's momentary deliberation over Alma was to be trusted seemed a bit odd. It just appeared that he suddenly decided to doubt her after hearing things from Bradley so I thought that was just a bid to create an extra conflict before letting Dylan get on with his business of hunting down the Four Horsemen.
Morgan Freeman may have a pretty small role here but he takes the role of Bradley to such a level that the character's still memorable despite the little airtime. Especially in the final scene where Bradley realised what was happening but did not know the whole truth, that expression on his face was priceless.
Overall, I think this is a pretty enjoyable film to watch but I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's a classic. Think of it as a suspense film with a dash of magic and humour plus some action scenes as icing on the cake.
