- An FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances, and reward their audiences with the money.
- Four magicians each answer a mysterious summons to an obscure address with secrets inside. A year later, they are the Four Horsemen, big time stage illusionists who climax their sold-out Las Vegas show with a bank apparently robbed for real. This puts F.B.I. Agents Dylan Rhodes and Interpol Agent Alma Dray on the case to find out how they did it. However, this mystery proves to be difficult to solve, even with the insights of professional illusion exposer Thaddeus Bradley. What follows is a bizarre investigation where nothing is what it seems to be, with illusions, dark secrets, and hidden agendas galore as all involved are reminded of a great truth in this puzzle: the closer you look, the less you see.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
- Small-time magicians Daniel Atlas, Merritt McKinney, Henley Reeves, and Jack Wilder are invited to attend a meeting in a weird apartment. One year later, they reappear as The Four Horsemen in a show in Las Vegas sponsored by the millionaire Arthur Tressler, and they heist a bank in Paris from the stage, and distribute the money to the audience. F.B.I. Agent Dylan Rhodes is assigned to the case and Interpol sends agent Alma Dray to be his partner. Dylan and Alma are completely lost in the investigation, and exposer of illusionists Thaddeus Bradley gives hints about illusion. When the Four Horsemen steal the bank account of Arthur Tressler during a show in New Orleans, Dylan and Alma believe that these heists are only a distraction for a huge scheme, but they are never sure about of what is true, and what is illusion.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Four down-on-their-luck magicians are brought together by an anonymous person who gives them the blueprints to a great illusion. A year later, they call themselves "The Four Horsemen", and the finale of their show is that they will rob a bank. The bank they choose to rob is in France, and they do it. The incident is brought to the attention of the F.B.I., so they assign Agent Dylan Rhodes to investigate. Alma Vargas, an Interpol Agent comes to help Rhodes, which he doesn't like. They turn to Thaddeus Bradley, a former magician, who exposes magic as simple trickery. Bradley shows them how they did it, but still not enough to give Rhodes grounds to arrest them. So they follow them and they pull another stunt, which makes Rhodes think that they're part of a plot to get back at certain people.—rcs0411@yahoo.com
- A team of talented illusionists called "The Four Horsemen" (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco) are investigated by a resolute F.B.I. Agent (Mark Ruffalo) following a series of brazen heists that leave their audiences swimming in cash while draining the bulging bank accounts of unscrupulous business leaders.
- Four gifted street magicians-J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson)-are brought together by an unknown benefactor (the benefactor remains hidden & only communicates via symbols & other means that only other magicians understand) and, one year later, perform in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen", sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler.
Daniel is a cards specialist, Henley can get out of chains & locks, Jack is an all-rounder & Mckinney is a hypnotist & a mentalist. For the finale, a member of the audience is invited to help them in their next trick: robbing a bank. That audience member is Étienne Forcier, an account holder at the Crédit Républicain De Paris. Forcier is apparently Teleported to his bank in Paris, where he activates an air-duct that vacuums up the money and showers it onto the crowd in Las Vegas.
Upon discovering that the money really is missing from the bank vault, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is called to investigate the theft and is partnered with Interpol agent Alma Dray. They interrogate the Four Horsemen but release them when no explanation can be found. Dylan meets Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), an ex-magician making money by revealing the secrets behind other magicians' tricks. Thaddeus was in the audience and deduced that the Horsemen stole the money weeks before and manipulated the audience's perception of current events.
Thaddeus deducts that the Horsemen actually stole the real money from the delivery van that was delivering the money to the bank & substituted it with fake money, which was designed to incinerate without residue upon remote activation. The bank customer was spied on for weeks in Paris, before he was handpicked from the audience (while making it seem that he was picked randomly). The customer was never "Teleported", he was merely dropped into a replica of the real bank's vault, just below the stage.
Dylan, Dray, and Thaddeus attend the Four Horsemen's next performance in New Orleans. The group's finale involves them stealing roughly $140 million from Tressler's bank account and distributing it to the audience, composed of people whose insurance claims had been denied or reduced by Tressler's company. Dylan attempts to arrest the Four Horsemen, but they escape with help from hypnotized audience members. An infuriated Tressler hires Thaddeus to expose and humiliate the Horsemen in their next performance.
Later, while researching the Four Horsemen's background, Dray learns about rumors of a secret society of magicians called "The Eye", who steal from the rich and powerful to give to the needy. Dylan finds that the Eye is a secret society that recruits members only twice a century & that aspirants must go through a series of commands with blind obedience & emerge victorious, to be inducted. Dylan also suggests to a skeptical Dylan the case might be tied to a magician named Lionel Shrike, whom Thaddeus had exposed 30 years earlier and who was so embarrassed that he undertook a dangerous underwater stunt involving a safe, and accidentally drowned.
The Horsemen are located in New York, but they escape during the raid to arrest them; however, Jack is killed when he crashes a stolen car, and it bursts into flames and explodes. The remaining Horsemen vow to continue and complete their final performance, stealing a safe made by the same company that made the safe Lionel Shrike died in. The company has hidden the safe deep inside a security vault & have stored $ 500 MM in it. The safe contains the company's savings.
They perform their one last show at 5 Pointz during which they seemingly vanish into thin air, transforming into loads of money that is showered on the crowd. The money turns out to be fake and the real money is found stashed in Thaddeus's Range Rover. Thaddeus is then assumed to be the fifth Horseman and is arrested, although he claims that he was framed.
Dylan visits Thaddeus in his cell, where Thaddeus explains that the only way the safe could have been removed was if Jack was still alive, but they would have also needed an inside man. Thaddeus realizes that Dylan is the fifth Horseman when Dylan disappears from the locked cell and reappears outside it. Dylan tells Thaddeus he wants him to spend the rest of his life in jail and leaves as Thaddeus asks why he did it. The Horsemen are now rejoined by Jack, whose death had been staged. They finally meet their benefactor and are surprised to find it is Dylan. He welcomes them into "The Eye."
Later, on the Pont Des Arts in France, Dray is met by Dylan who reveals himself to be the son of Lionel Shrike, the magician who drowned years ago. He masterminded and designed the Horsemen plot to obtain revenge on those involved: Thaddeus, for humiliating his father; the Crédit Républicain De Paris and Tressler's company, who refused to pay the insurance on his father's death; and the company that produced the substandard safe used in the trick that led to its failure. Dray, however, decides not to turn him in. Dray takes a lock and a key that Dylan magically produces as he proclaims, "One more secret to lock away". After Dray locks the lock on a chain fence with all of the locks that have been locked there over the years, she throws the key into the Seine.
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