Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Prestige - "Man's reach exceeds his grasp" It's a lie. Man's grasp exceeds his nerve.


Yesterday, I spent about 130 minutes of my life watching a movie. I don't really know whether it would have been useful for my life in future, but I knew that it would be certainly entertaining. The built-up which I created for that movie made me watch that movie, within no time I got that movie. I have a close friend who writes reviews about books, so it made me think why I can't write reviews about movies!? And then, here I am writing a review for the movie which I saw yesterday, the prestige. Surely it not a layman's movie, as most of other Nolan's movies was. In fact, it would acquire one of the top three positions for 'see again to understand' type of movies, I saw!
It's a movie which deals with two magicians. The carelessness of one of them, accidently kills the others wife. And as they both are magicians, their bemire mind unravels to horrific magic tricks and it totally anguishes both of their life. Nolan uses science and magic tricks to great effect in defining the movie.
The first thing about the movie which attracted me the most was screenplay. It was stunningly awesome; the way the story unfolds as the time passes in the movie. Only Nolan could do works of such a stunning quality!
Next was performance of the caste. No prizes for writing about this. The people who acted are masters in their fields! Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman were awesome. They complement and contradict each other in the movie so efficiently! Though people might admire both of them, I would like to say Jackman steals the show a bit more than Bale. The difference he shows as a dummy is pure class. Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca hall, David Bowie has done their work perfectly fine. And honourable mention is Michael Caine. He was 73 when this movie released, period!
The third and a very important factor is the thought process of the writer. This is adaptation of the book called 'the prestige' written by Christopher Priest. I read in cyberspace that he spent lot of time researching about magic and Nicola Tesla. I would really give him hats off for his thought process!
One final thing which I'm not so convinced about is the last stunt which Jackman does. The stunt actually called 'the Transported Man', where one guy goes into one door and comes out of other (which is at some distance) within no time. Again, there are many arguments in cyberspace that Tesla actually found similar equipment, but it's hard to believe. As it is a movie, we can accept and enjoy it, but not in real life! I haven't understood any scientific explanation for that stunt, at least through the movie. The movie would have been faultless if any logical explanation was given for that stunt (which I think is not given or may be I didn't notice).
The prestige is actually a stunning magical movie, which would make some think after the movie is finished, for some, for next two days, and some one like me, it can even be two decades!
P.S. – The line in the title is a dialogue from the movie; I don't understand it, totally! If anybody understands it, please let me know!

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