Nolan pulls off fine trick with flick The Prestige

By Frank D’Adamo
Collegian Staff
November 1, 2006

Competition can sometimes be an obsession, and everyone may go to severe degrees to win. In The Prestige, the main characters went to such extremes that they go from being friends to rivals trying to destroy each others’ lives. The movie itself presented some great magic tricks with excellent special effects that can amaze anyone at what being a magician is like.

The Prestige is directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, with supporting roles from Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. The movie explains the inner-workings of how magicians have three separate steps into their acts: “The Pledge,” “The Turn” and “The Prestige.”

Jackman and Bale have a friendship early on in the movie, but, because of an act gone badly, the friendship turns into a bitter rivalry. Trying to outdo each other, the rivalry quickly becomes an obsession because both men want to learn how they perform a particular trick that involves illusion. They study each other intently, and the obsession lead to both men becoming mortal enemies.

The Prestige has a lot of interesting approaches and fascinating views on how magicians perform specific tasks. It answers a lot of questions that may seem confusing at first, but then, in the end, make sense. It also had great special effects and acting, as well as the ability to keep the audience’s attention from beginning to end. The Prestige delivers in all of these aspects.

The general interest of the film is the obsession both men had in trying to figure out how the other did his magic tricks. The movie became so intense because they would deliberately ruin the other’s act and reputation.

The Prestige delivers in all aspects that are worth seeing. The story may start off slow at first, but it picks up and becomes impressive throughout by staying constant. The whole movie itself is a climax and has the capability to make those sitting in their seats wonder, “How did he do that?”

dadamof1@lasalle.edu