THE PRESTIGE
Touchstone Pictures
Rated PG-13
STARRING:
Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johannson
THE VERDICT:
Somber settings and a feeling of depression lend a solid ambience to the film, but plot malfunctions keep it from the prestige it needs.
2.5/4 stars
“Every great magic trick consists of three acts,” explains Cutter (Michael Caine), a seen-it-all show business insider in 1900s London. The first act is a pledge, where “the magician shows you something ordinary, but of course … it probably isn’t.” The next act turns that ordinary thing into “something extraordinary.”
The final act is the one that wows the audience and brings it all home. It, like the new film from director Christopher Nolan, is called “The Prestige,” and as Cutter explains, it’s the part of the trick “with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.”
An offbeat and immaculately produced new thriller, Nolan’s film nails the first two acts but can’t really make the third the stunner it needs to be.
Adapted by the director and his brother Jonathan Nolan from Christopher Priest’s novel of the same name, “The Prestige” follows magicians Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) from early partnership to growing rivalry to all-out warfare for stage supremacy.
From the moment the two meet, Cutter warns Angier that Borden is “a natural magician” who “lives his act,” meaning, of course, that he cannot be trusted. The men are so committed to maintaining the secrets of their tricks that they hire blind stagehands and record their failsafe information in encrypted codes only they can decipher.
But Borden is tired of keeping secrets for “cheap thrills [and] people hoping for an accident.” He wants a trick that will put all of Angier’s showiest bits to shame. After all, he says, “A secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.” His new trick, called “The Transported Man,” will not only astound London theatergoers but also set into motion events that will leave both men shadows of their former selves.
Sadly, this all sounds like more devilish fun than it actually is. Soon enough, the stage is set for deception, obsession and murders most foul, and once the tone dives into the depressing and macabre, it never really turns back.
When Angier’s assistant and wife Julia dies onstage in an accident that may have been Borden’s fault, Angier devotes his life to revenge. His obsession with trumping Borden’s “Transported Man” leads him to America and the foggy snowdrifts of Colorado Springs, where scientist and certifiably eccentric Nikola Tesla (yes, that Tesla) is rumored to be working on a mysterious invention that can actually perform a feat that magicians claim they can.
Tesla (David Bowie) enters the film calmly walking through a field of manmade lightning, and his appearance ushers the story into a truly bizarre second half overflowing with unexplained phenomena, false identities and narrative black holes. Bowie will mutter his lines in a disconcerting monotone. Andy Serkis will sport a bowler and sneer as Tesla’s assistant. Scarlett Johansson will simply smile and look sexy in corsets in a small, inconsequential role as first Angier’s then Borden’s assistant.
Caine adds the wisdom of years to any supporting role he plays, and the leads in “Prestige” are good as well, especially Jackman, who shows a far wider range of rage and defeat than he’s been able to squeeze into his jaunts through the Marvel universe. While Jackman’s character starts as a consummate showman, Bale’s begins as more of a brute, a young man whose skill always comes in second to his ambition.
There’s a very strong thematic current throughout the film about the war between logic and faith, with each main character seemingly starting out rooted in one realm and drifting to the other. It’s an interesting dynamic, and a tragic one; the logician will never see magic as more than cold, cruel science, and the man who embraces the fates cannot see the logician’s knife coming as it nears his throat.
“The Prestige” has an intoxicatingly strong sense of time and place, from the still dread of Colorado Springs to the bustling decay of turn-of-last-century London, plus its thriller aspects really hit on some terrifying universal fears (drowning, eerie silence, unrestrained electricity, David Bowie). The cinematography and editing are top-notch, as is Nolan’s direction, excluding the film’s somewhat bungled climax.
But it’s that lackluster conclusion that makes the entire film come up of short of its potential. The whole plot hinges on two final reveals, but when neither reveal is particularly shocking, the movie flounders. Nolan blows one twist through some clumsy shot selections and lousy development of a crucial fringe character, and the other is barely a twist at all considering a revelation about Tesla’s machine that’s already been divulged and the overtly metaphoric image (a mountain of discarded top hats) that opened the film.
Though its style and lead performances are persuasive and diverting, there’s not enough magic in the film to misdirect the eye from its unfilled plot holes and the overly self-congratulatory way it builds itself up to a conclusion that fizzles and infuriates when it should awe.
“Are you watching closely?” snarls Bale. Yes, but there’s no need. Ultimately, Nolan abracadabras himself and “The Prestige” into an impassably dark corner. His film makes a pledge and takes a turn, but his last step is far from a doozy.