Two 19th century illusionists strive to attain prestige by building the best Prestige.  Arrogance, greed, obsession lead to corruption, enmity, revenge. Lives are not sacrosanct to The Prestige.    View Movie Trailer through IMDb.com

The Prestige, set in the 19th century, is the second of two recent films about magicians and truth and illusion. The first is The Illusionist. This one, The Prestige which is directed by Christopher Nolan, has a darker flavor to it, though, and it definitely isn't a love story. What it is is a power story. In his attempt to attain power and prestige, a cocky and arrogant, aspiring, young magician's assistant rebells against caution and unleashes a chain of catastrophic events which are then propelled to even greater catastrophes by further arrogance, revenge, self-absorption and greed.

The principal characters are an aging illusionist who performs on-stage with a beautiful, young assistant (Piper Perabo); two strong young men who help attend her during a dangerous underwater escape; and the retired illusionist who now builds tricks for other performers and stands, at the ready, in the wings during the underwater escape with ax and stopwatch in hand should his assistance be required; and another beautiful magician's assistant who is a trainee; and a master electrician. One of the two men is the husband of the beautiful woman who nightly risks her life and the other is a hot-blooded aspirant to the place of Master Illusionist. The principal actors are Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier), Christian Bale (Alfred Borden), Michael Cain (Cutter), Scarlett Johannson (Olivia Wenscombe), Rebecca Hall as Borden's wife, Sarah and David Bowie in a brilliantly chilling performance as Nikola Tesla.

One night, a quarrel between the retired trick builder, master illusionist and his hot-blooded assistant develops after the show. The subject at hand is the question of what kind of knot to tie round the woman's wrists to make her escape more dramatic but not impossible (the retired trick builder doesn't actually want to use his ax...). The two older men insist that the only safe thing to do is to continue with the current knot. The young assistant vehemently disagrees, because he thinks that a more complex knot wold be more sensational and just as safe, despite the effects of water on the hemp. The husband of the beautiful assistant naturally comes down on the side of the older men and puts an end to the argument: the tried and true knot will be continued with.

Then comes the first of the catastrophes. It is this catastrophe which leads to the moment when the husband's heart freezes and changes forever with his utterance of the words, "You don't know?"

The Prestige is an intricate and involved story which is full of surprises. With the screenplay written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, this story explores the darker sides of human nature. Two individuals tightly hold a secret so they can pursue greatness on the illusionist's stage. And a good man is corrupted through enmity, revenge and greed. The title, The Prestige, could have derived from the main characters' pursuit of prestige as illusionists, but it doesn't. It actually derives from the name of the third part of a magic trick: The Prestige. It is in The Prestige that the dove who was made to vanish is brought back, the woman locked in a tank of water escapes, the man reappears in an impossible place. The Prestige is the illusionist's climax.

Another good thing about The Prestige is Michael Cain as Cutter. Bravo. Another Academy Award coming? I think so. Michael Cain's low-level sincerity works perfectly here. He is intense, yet controlled: he plays tricks, after all, with people's lives. One thing that Mr. Cain succeeds in doing is to hold the secret (everyone has secrets in The Prestige, even the actors) to some of the film's big surprises without ever letting on or giving anything away. That's not easy to do.

Scarlett Johannson (Olivia Wenscombe) is in general another good thing about The Prestige but here, like in Scoop, she makes some significant miscalculations. First, in her opening line, "Is this supposed to be hard?" her accent is pure American, but thereafter, every time she speaks she demonstrates varying levels of English accent. Not good for a star who is generally a perfectionist: She was sublime in Lost in Translation and The Girl with the Pearl Earring. This inability to completely embrace a foreign accent was accentuated by a similar inability to completely embrace mannerisms more 19th century that 21st century. Ms. Johannson will most certainly excel next time she undertakes a cross-national period piece, but this time, she missed her mark a bit.

Even though the acting from all the principals is in general first rate, it seems inadequate. This illusion happens because, after the first big catastrophe, there is no one to really like--except for Mr. Cain's character, and Cutter always keeps his distance, as he is the objective keeper of safety in the tricks. And the transformation Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) goes through is disturbing and alienating. Perhaps this disturbing alienation is what was wanted, as part of the theme is surely that good people confound themselves through enmity, revenge and obsession (a message our world is ripe to hear). And granted, you don't want the audience really liking people motivated by deceit, enmity and revenge. But it seems it is also not sensible to alienate your audience.

One of these unlovely characters wins out and triumphs in the end, but we're not happy about it and we're not meant to be happy about it. Because this film ends badly, with no one to admire and cheer for, I am tempted to not rate it above 4 Stars, even though the flaws were restricted to Scarlett Johannson being in a little over her head and the characters' moral principals. But because most parts were without flaw and the movie achieved its end--alienation from those pursuing enmity--I give it a rating of 4 3/4 Stars. But even though I can admire it, I don't really like it.