Prestige
Christopher Nolan has proven that he is one of the last few Hollywood filmmakers capable of making almost totally original work, or at least original takes on familiar work (Dark Knight), so itās little surprise when watching this 2006 release just how little it references from the past and comes across as something made entirely from whole cloth. The plot concerns two magicians who start out working together and then go their separate ways after a tragic occurrence, becoming heated rivals to the point of obsession as one of them (Christian Bale) is by far the most proficient of the two at magic, while the other (Hugh Jackman) is less skillful with the tricks but makes up for it with a grand sense of showmanship in the tradition of Siegfried And Roy. Once Bale has come out with the āultimateā trick, Jackman is driven nearly to the point of insanity to find out how itās done, and pulls out all the stops in doing so. Itās probably best at this point to leave the specific plot details (and the subsequent twists) to be discovered by the viewer, and talk about the story in more abstract terms. Both Bale and Jackman are at the top of their game, as rarely has two top actors such as this matched off so especially well. In fact, it can be said that this may be the best acting of Jackmanās career. In the role of his agent / mentor, Michael Caine takes what might be a throwaway role and invests it with the kind of dignity and emotional weight that only he can, and creates another interesting turn for his repertoire as well; David Bowie shows up as Nicola Tesla, the (real life) āmad scientistā and rival of Thomas Edison whose work with electrical currents broke new ground and might turn out to be the key to one of the main charactersā magic act, ably supported by Andy (Gollum) Serkis as his assistant; Piper Perabo shows off her beauty and class in an all too brief role; and only Scarlett Johansson stumbles and falls with a rather wooden portrayal as the duplicitous assistant of Jackmanās sent as a spy to steal Baleās secrets. Part of what literally drives the plot is the viewer really doesnāt know which of the two men is literally the āevilā one and which is the āgoodā one (though even that can seem murky), and indeed the ambiguous nature of the otherwise brilliant script almost threatens to make it collapse upon itself, but once the viewer starts to get lost Bale and Jackman ease us back into it as they manage to convey intensity, insecurity, and even panic sometimes with little more than a close-up as in many ways the story turns into a series of attempts by either man to āone-upā the other (usually by showing up in disguise and acting as a āvolunteerā to screw up the otherās performance). Even more fascinating is that on later appraisal, itās even possible that with the twists of the story things are not really all they seem, adding to the credit that Nolan should receive for enacting an genuine display of narrative sleight of hand. Overall, a movie worth watching for its ingenuity, its acting from the two leads, and most of all its originalityā¦
8/10