‘Now You See Me: Now You Don't’ Movie Review: Morgan Freeman and Jesse Eisenberg’s heist thriller is a fun watch

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, and Morgan Freeman

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Language: English

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is the perfect name for a film that talks about magic, tricks, and illusions. The franchise began more than a decade ago and it has been almost a decade for part three to drop on the big screens. It finally has. The four horsemen have grown in numbers and so have the quips. The game of one-upmanship exists even within the team and there’s some visceral, emotional, humorous energy to be had in their breathless exchanges. Director Ruben Samuel Fleischer keeps the momentum going. He knows his central characters are magicians, so they’ll camouflage the flaws in the narratives with their ingenious abilities.

A chase sequence ensues and all of a sudden the security personnel are hypnotised into playing ukuleles. Key characters from the previous movies show up and it’s a great nostalgic moment and worthy of catcalls. By now, the horsemen and horsewomen have their backs. Unlike the inevitable cliches that usually get trapped in Bollywood heist dramas, and the names are copious, we barely get time to see their conflicts because there are pretty much none. They get along like a house on fire. One tiny monologue and they have their change of heart and back to being a team.

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Jesse Eisenberg, the star of that 2010 The Social Network, truly has a blast playing a guy called Atlas, a charismatic cocksure character who’s hilariously asked in one scene if his mother had s*x with a map. Morgan Freeman, the doyen of cinema, in a cameo, still has his grace and dignified gait intact. But it’s Rosamund Pike, the delightful and delicious cherry on the immensely edible and enjoyable cake, who’s the star of the enterprise. She’s the antagonist of the story but a dazzling one, exactly how she likes. Her voracious vocabulary, the choice of words, and the oomph she exudes even when she’s furious and defeated, are a thing of beauty. One of the horsemen is so enamored by her aura, she can’t take her eyes off her even when they are supposed to nab the lady.

The thing about heist thrillers is how they have to be a step ahead of the audience and not just the people that are supposed to be trumped and triumphed. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t falls in the bracket too and rightly so. The audiences get to witness a nice twist towards the climax and another twist that feels like an antidote to the previous one. It was all there and yet not. You know that’s why the elongated title? But the shenanigans of the gang are far from over. We have one more film coming soon. There’s another line in the film that says that magicians are entertainers and not superheroes. Well, giving someone a good time isn’t less than being heroic! How’s that for a quip?

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now playing in cinemas