http://www.theillusionist.com/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/illusionist/

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

The film stars Academy Award® nominees Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X) and Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man, Sideways) as two men pitted against each other in a battle of wits. Norton plays a mysterious stage magician, Eisenheim, who bends nature's laws to his will in front of awestruck crowds. Giamatti co-stars as Vienna's shrewd Chief Inspector Uhl, a man committed to uphold the law and for whom magic holds no place in his ordered world. Jessica Biel (Elizabethtown) shares the screen as the beautiful and enigmatic Sophie von Teschen, who finds her future inexorably altered when she encounters the man called Eisenheim, and Eisenheim comes dangerously close to unlocking the dark secret of the monarchy that she holds.When Eisenheim begins to perform his astounding illusions in Vienna, word quickly spreads of his otherworldly powers...even reaching the ears of one of Europe's most powerful and pragmatic men, Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell, Dark City). Certain that the illusionist is nothing more than an accomplished fraud, Leopold attends one of Eisenheim's shows, convinced that he can debunk him during the performance. But when the Prince's beautiful fiancé and companion, Sophie von Teschen, assists the magician onstage, Eisenheim and Sophie recognize each other from their childhoods-and a dormant love affair is rekindled. With Eisenheim and Leopold vying for Sophie's affection, it quickly becomes apparent that both will go to any length to claim and keep her love. As the clandestine romance continues, Uhl is charged by Leopold to intensify his efforts to expose Eisenheim, even while the magician gains a devoted and vocal public following. With Uhl doggedly searching for the reasons and the man behind the trickery, Eisenheim prepares to execute his greatest illusion yet.

My rating - 5 out of 10

I took my fifteen year old daughter to the screening deep in South Austin at one of my least favorite theaters (due primarily to constant projection problems), so the darkness of the film can probably be forgiven, even if it was perhaps unintentionally and eerily effective. As with most period pieces, THE ILLUSIONIST is bathed in a kind of nostalgic gold cepiatone the understates and already understated performance by Edward Norton as Eisenheim. Jessica Biel sheds her bikini for a generalized European accent, while Paul Giamatti proves that he can pull off something besides the pathetic girlie-man we've become used to in his interpretation of Inspector Uhl. Giamatti, who so enteratined us with last year's SIDEWAYS, once again goes the the indie route, although this time with much more polished results.

The problems with THE ILLUSIONIST have to do with the usually outstanding Norton as the title character and with the script, which looks and feels like a bad M. Night Shymalyan wannabe. As for the latter, the "twist", if you could call it that, is so painfully obvious by the end of the first act that it makes the gimmick in THE VILLAGE look like a Mensa puzzle. Don't get me wrong...the script and dialogue are beautifully written and for the most part well acted. The issue is that the ultimate enjoyment of the script relies almost entirely on a plot device that most five year olds will figure out way too early in the movie, and it really spoils it.

Norton is another issue. I love Edward Norton, but for a role that supposedly calls for a mysterious magician, Norton looks and speaks more like the beautiful magician's assistant who is put to sleep and then sawed in half. Illusionists are flamboyant and flashy, not sonombulists. Several times in the film during his act, Norton's illusionist sits motionless in a plain wooden chair doing something we can only assume is supposed to be "conjuring." Looked more like he had fallen asleep to me. The only sign of inner or outward struggle I ever saw was a half-hearted expulsion of air and slump that I guess was supposed to indicate he was tired at the end of his illusion. Visions such as he had just produced (whether real or illusion) should leave a performer looking like that had just given birth, not just passed gas. This was the actor who had given us a terrifying white supremacist in AMERICAN HISTORY X and a master card shark in the underrated ROUNDERS? I kept wanting him to break out, and he never did.

Worth the rental if for nothing more than to see Giamatti do his thing again and Biel do something other than be the hottest actress on the planet.