Now You See Me

An FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money.

Director: Louis Leterrier

Writers: Ed Solomon (screenplay), Boaz Yakin (screenplay) | 3 more credits »

Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Common, Mark Ruffalo

Movie Plot: Four gifted magicians: J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas (Eisenberg), an up and coming illusionist; Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), a has-been mentalist trying to get back on his feet after his brother/manager ran off with his money; Henley Reeves (Fisher), an escape artist and Danny's former magician's assistant/lover; and Jack Wilder (Franco), a street wise con-man and master lock picker—are brought together by an unknown benefactor after mysteriously finding Tarot cards that tell them to be at a specific time and place where a plan is holographically projected for them. The plot time jumps to a year later, where we find them performing in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen" with financing by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Caine). For the finale of their show (the first of three big tricks in the movie, because magicians always use two progressively more difficult tricks to set up their big finale) they declare they will rob the bank of a randomly selected audience member, Étienne Forcier, an account holder at the Crédit Républicain de Paris. Etienne dons a camera equipped helmet and is teleported into the vault of his bank in Paris, France where a pile of freshly printed Euros awaits. The Horsemen instruct Etienne to leave a calling card, whereupon an air duct vacuums up the money and showers it onto the Las Vegas crowd. Upon the discovery that the money really is missing from the bank vault, a reluctant FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) is called to investigate the theft and is partnered with Interpol agent Alma Dray (Laurent). Dylan interrogates the arrogant Magicians and is convinced of their guilt, but is forced to release them due to lack of evidence.

Dylan and Alma meet with Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), a former magician who professionally reveals the secrets behind other magicians' tricks. Thaddeus was in the audience and deduces the Horsemen stole the money from the armored car delivering a batch of newly minted money, replacing it with counterfeit money printed on flash paper, which spontaneously ignites once inside the Crédit Républicain Bank's vault and burns up without a trace. Hoping to catch the Horsemen in the act, the three go to the group's next performance in New Orleans, where the Horsemen steal millions from Tressler's bank account and distribute it to the audience, somehow composed entirely of victims of Hurricane Katrina whose insurance claims had been denied or reduced by Tressler's company. Dylan attempts to apprehend the Four Horsemen, but they escape via disappearing trick. An infuriated Tressler hires Thaddeus to expose and humiliate the Horsemen in their next performance.

Meanwhile, Alma researches the group and suggests to Dylan they might be tied to twice-a-century initiation into ancient secret society of magicians called "the Eye", who claim to have access to real magic. One of their members, a man named Lionel Shrike, died decades ago when Thaddeus exposed his tricks and ruined him, and Shrike hastily attempted a stunt to rebuild his career, escaping from a safe dropped into a river, only to die when the stunt went wrong. Alma believes there might be a "Fifth Horseman" who is aiding the group off-stage. However, Dylan begins to suspect Alma's motives after she fails to take a shot at the fleeing Danny.

The FBI tracks the fugitive magicians to a tenement in New York. Danny, Henley, and Meritt flee before the FBI arrive. Jack stays behind to finish destroying the Horsemen's files, but is forced to flee with some key documents when Dylan arrives. Jack leads police on a high-speed car chase, but he loses control; the car crashes and catches fire. Dylan heroically tries to pull a trapped Jack free, but manages only to grab the documents just before the car explodes. Dylan is disgraced, and another agent is put in charge over him. The FBI deduce from the recovered documents that the Horsemen are planning to steal a cash-filled safe owned by the Elkhorn Safe Company, and head to the warehouse where the safe is located. The safe is missing, but they are able to track it and hope it leads them to the Horsemen.

The Horsemen announce they will perform their final trick at 5 Pointz and invite the public to attend. The FBI catch up to the stolen safe at 5 Pointz just before the show begins, but to their dismay, the safe is a fake filled with balloon animals. The new lead investigator spots the Horsemen atop a building as the show starts and orders everyone to get up there. Alma and Dylan realize this is another deception and they go the other way to the building where the Horsemen really are. After making their farewell speech wherein they lay claim to a noble purpose, the three remaining magicians jump as Dylan and Alma reach them. Dylan tries to shoot at them as they leap from the roof, but Alma spoils his aim. As they begin to fall, the three magically transform into a shower of bills that rain down on the crowd. We soon see from a bird's eye camera view the three magicians running across a rooftop. The transformation is merely a spectacular illusion, and the money turns out to be obvious forgeries. The real money is found stuffed in Thaddeus' car; he is arrested, and assumed to be the Fifth Horseman.

Dylan visits Thaddeus in his cell. In hopes of convincing Dylan that he has been framed, Thaddeus reveals how the Horsemen stole the money from Elkhorn's safe. Jack's death was faked to put the FBI onto the Elkhorn trail. Thaddeus goes on to explain that the Horsemen must have an inside man, whereupon he realizes it is Dylan. A somewhat gleeful Dylan tells Thaddeus this has all been an elaborate plan and he wants Thaddeus to spend the rest of his life in jail and leaves.

Jack, alive and well, rejoins the Horsemen in Central Park. They use their Tarot cards to make a key that starts up the merry-go-round. Dylan emerges to reveal himself as their secret benefactor and to welcome the horsemen to the Eye.

At the Pont des Arts in France, Alma is met by Dylan, who reveals himself to be Lionel Shrike's son. He masterminded the Horsemen plot as revenge on those involved: Thaddeus, for humiliating his father and forcing him to try a risky stunt to revive his career; the Crédit Républicain de Paris and Tressler's company, who refused to pay the insurance on his father's death; and Elkhorn, the company that produced the substandard safe used in the trick that led to its failure. Alma decides not to turn him in. She takes a lock and a key that Dylan produces, putting the lock on a chain fence and throwing the key into the Seine.

In a mid-credits scene, the Four Horsemen have driven to a wasteland in the middle of a desert. All of them enter and find a secret room containing boxes full of their new magic equipment. They turn to Merritt and ask him for their individual cards to open the boxes, and it is seemingly implied that he has either lost or forgotten the cards.