‘Now You See Me’ Ending Explained

In a approach, heist films and magic tips are lots alike: on the similar time we declare to wish to know the way issues are achieved, we derive extra pleasure from the expertise of not realizing. Being at nighttime not solely permits us to be amazed, it additionally provides us the chance to create our personal theories about how somebody may pull off such an intricate deception. In Louis Leterrier‘s Now You See Me, heist and magic come collectively to create a narrative so stuffed with twists and turns that it may be arduous to maintain up, even if you’re watching very intently. In spite of everything, the nearer you look — the film tells you — the extra inclined you’re to being duped. However even with all of the carpet-pulls and sleights of hand that fill this 2013 thriller, nothing prepares audiences for the movie’s final reveal. In the long run, our questions have much less to do with how our protagonists arrange their advanced schemes and extra with what they stood to realize from them. However maybe crucial query of all is who precisely our heroes are, as a result of a minimum of one of many characters in Now You See Me is not who they declare to be.

In its first couple of minutes, Now You See Me introduces 4 magicians making an attempt to make a dwelling via authorized or unlawful means. After they every obtain a tarot card (The Lovers, The Excessive Priestess, The Hermit, and Loss of life, respectively) from a mysterious, hooded determine, card grasp J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and jack-of-all-trades Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) be part of forces to turn into one of many largest magic acts on this planet, often known as the 4 Horsemen. In dazzling performances, made doable by millionaire Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), the Horsemen make their audiences richer by staging state-of-the-art heists comparable to robbing a financial institution on a very totally different continent and emptying their very own benefactor’s checking account. Such schemes name the eye of the FBI and former magician Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), who now makes a dwelling out of exposing illusionists of all types. After their inaugural act, the FBI places collectively a taskforce to analyze the Horsemen, led by agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol envoy Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent).

Mark Ruffalo’s Agent Dylan Rhodes Is on the Hunt for the Horsemen

All through the film, Rhodes and Dray try to fail to catch the 4 Horsemen, who’re all the time one step forward of the folks investigating them. Their stage of strategic benefit finally leads the power to contemplate the existence of a fifth horseman appearing behind the scenes. And, certainly, because the ending of Now You See Me reveals, Atlas, Reeves, McKinney, and Wilder do have a secret ally. They, nevertheless, are such a thriller that not even the 4 Horsemen know their identification. After framing Bradley for the final heist, they go to their remaining assembly spot at Central Park, solely to be greeted by none apart from Agent Rhodes himself.

It seems that Rhodes is not a daily FBI agent, however truly the son of a disgraced magician that has been planning his revenge since his father’s premature dying. His father, Lionel Shrike, died locked in a secure on the backside of a river, making an attempt to tug off an escape trick that will put him again on the map after Bradley ruined his act. Framing Bradley for the heist of the Elkhorn secure is the ultimate act of Dylan’s revenge plan, which he enacts when he first joins the FBI a few years earlier than the movie’s plot. He’s the mysterious man that brings the Horsemen collectively, and the one that offers them the steering they should pull off their stunts. And he does all of it from the shadows. Bradley and the Horsemen are all so blinded by their very own delight, so certain that they’re smarter than everybody else within the room, that they by no means suspect Rhodes as being anybody apart from an incapable agent that has no thought who or what he’s messing with.

Rhodes’ complete character all through the movie is nothing however a fastidiously crafted stage persona, we be taught within the remaining scenes. After Bradley is discovered with the Elkhorn cash in his automotive — planted there by the 4 Horsemen, after all — Rhodes visits him in jail and, after participating him in an extended dialog about Shrike, reveals that he’s in actual fact the disgraced magician’s son. This scene connects completely with the film’s title; for the primary time because the plot kicks off, Bradley sees Rhodes for who he actually is. Likewise, for the primary time since he ruined Shrike’s life, Bradley sees the true results of his deeds, the very actual and harmless people who he harmed. Now You See Me, on this case, seems like a line that might have come out of Rhodes’ mouth.

The Horsemen Select Their Targets Very Particularly in ‘Now You See Me’

Thaddeus Bradley is not the one celebration affected by Rhodes’ revenge. The plan concocted by Shrike’s son has a simply dessert meant for each agent that had a hand within the magician’s dying and his household’s destroy. Crédit Républicain is the establishment that has a hand in denying Shrike’s household his life insurance coverage. As such, they are the primary to account for his or her actions in the course of the financial institution heist within the Horsemen’s first Vegas act. Although the viewers is satisfied that the corporate is chosen at random, the Horsemen act for over a yr to plant the thought of going to their present within the thoughts of one of many financial institution’s shoppers. As soon as on the present, stated shopper is led to imagine that he has been teleported into the financial institution’s secure to rob it, whereas in actuality, the Horsemen rob the cash lengthy earlier than.

Tressler Insurance coverage, the corporate owned by the Horsemen’s nice benefactor, equally has a hand in not paying the Shrikes’ insurance coverage. For that reason, of their New Orleans present, Atlas, Reeves, McKinney, and Wilder faucet into Arthur Tressler’s checking account and provides his cash away to victims of the Katrina hurricane, one other group of individuals his firm has left behind. They acquire entry to Tressler’s account by performing mentalism tips on him, finally forcing him to reveal private info comparable to his mom’s maiden identify and the identify of his first pet.

Elkhorn is the one firm the Horsemen rob that does not have its cash distributed to others. That does not imply, nevertheless, that the secure producer would not have its share of involvement in Shrike’s demise. As Dylan explains to Alma of their remaining dialog, Elkhorn was once extraordinarily careless with the standard of their merchandise. It’s one in every of their faulty safes that Shrike makes use of in his failed escape trick, one that’s deformed and rendered inescapable as quickly as it’s dropped into the water.

What Is the Eye of Horus?

Whereas Rhodes gathers the 4 Horsemen to enact his revenge, Atlas, Reeves, McKinney, and Wilder observe alongside as a way to be part of a secret society of magicians known as The Eye of Horus, or just, The Eye. First talked about within the movie by Bradley in the course of the recording of one in every of his movies, The Eye is first arrange by illusionists in Historic Egypt that used their expertise to steal meals from the pharaohs and provides it away to the poor. This Robin Hood-esque nature of the society is the rationale why nearly all of the tips carried out by the Horsemen contain redistributing wealth. On the finish of the film, the Horsemen acquire entry to the key society by none apart from Dylan Rhodes. The yr they spend between receiving their tarot playing cards and pulling off their remaining heist is, for them, nothing however an extended initiation ceremony.

Mentioned initiation takes place close to a tree in Central Park, the place the Horsemen meet Rhodes on the finish of Now You See Me. It is a tree that holds significance to Rhodes for being the place during which his father performs his first massive magic trick. In its hole, the cardboard Shrike makes use of to carry out his trick is preserved as an indication that the place is not necessary simply to Rhodes, however seemingly to the Eye as effectively. Uniting the 4 tarot playing cards that they obtain from Dylan on the film’s onset, Atlas, Reeves, McKinney, and Wilder activate Shrike’s tree, turning on a carousel that serves as a doorway to the Eye. The activation is what lastly causes Rhodes to step ahead, welcoming the 4 Horsemen into the key society.

It is as a magic trick that Now You See Me lastly wraps up. The film attracts us in as if we’re watching an illusionist efficiency, begging us to look intently at its many twists and turns, assuring us that that is the place one thing superb will occur. However the true magic trick — Rhodes’ revenge — takes place elsewhere, not simply within the elaborate heists carried out by the 4 Horsemen, but additionally in Dylan’s personal “investigation.” It is in his efficiency as a clueless agent; within the years that go by earlier than the film’s plot; within the machinations of a society that’s ever-present; and but the magic solely actually rears its head within the very remaining moments. As a result of, like in an excellent magic trick, we will not see the workings of Dylan’s revenge till the final minute, after we be taught of them in a Thaddeus Bradley-like clarification.

Now You See Me is out there to stream on Max within the U.S.

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