“Misdirection in Its Own Right”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Now You See Me combines the genres of a movie about magicians with a heist movie, and it ends up with an example of more is less.

Even the appearances of Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine can’t pull this movie out of the doldrums.

The story begins when four magicians who each have different specialties are all summoned to a locked apartment in New York City which is full of clues that they have to figure out in order to learn why they were summoned.

The four magicians are Daniel, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is a master of misdirection; Henley, played by Isla Fisher, who is Daniel’s former assistant; Merritt, played by Woody Harrelson, who is a mentalist; and Jack, played by Dave Franco, who is an expert at card tricks.

Incidentally, Dave Franco is the brother of James Franco.

Then we shift to one year later in Las Vegas, the four now call themselves The Four Horsemen, and they put on a spectacular show in a casino, where Daniel announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we are going to rob a bank!”

Well, not only do they rob a bank of 32 million Euros, but the bank is in Paris, France, and the robbery occurs during the show with the assistance of a man pulled at random from out of the audience.

Now the FBI gets involved with Agent Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo, another agent from Interpol, a woman named Alma Dray shows up to assist him, and after an interrogation that is unproductive for the authorities, The Four Horsemen are off to their next big show in New Orleans, which is publicized as the setup for their third show, the “Big Punch,” in New York City.

The thing about magic, however, is that if you know how a trick is done, you lose interest in watching that trick again, and a famous magician tells Agents Rhodes and Dray how The Four Horsemen managed to rob that bank in Paris.

The movie tries to spice things up with races through the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, but again The Four Horsemen escape, and they are on to New York City, where a car chase through the streets and over a bridge don’t help much, either.

Now You See Me itself is all misdirection.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”