The Prestige

Yesterday I watched “The Prestige” (“El truco final” in Spain) (IMDb|FilmAffinity), and was rather pleased with it.



USA film poster (from Wikipedia)

I do not dare to compare it to films like Newman and Redford’s The Sting (“El Golpe” in Spain), but I feel tempted to. The plot is superb, and the unraveling of the events is delicious.

The best things about it, however good they are, are not the crafting of the set designs and the magical tricks. What I liked most is the psychological profile of the two main characters. The film sketches quite accurately the enmity, envy, obsession and pride of two great competing magicians. The audience is taken away from the paradigm of “good guy vs. bad guy”, to an scenario of two rather “bad guys”, blinded by obsession.

The only weak point I’d like to point out is the fact that one of the tricks they show (and explain in the end) pictures as scientific an effect that is not, and would require actual magic to happen. But, what the heck, it is a movie, and that fake science is necessary for the dramatic development of the film, so… let it be.

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