Details
Produced by Bobby Cohen
Alex Kurtzman
Roberto Orci
Distributed by Summit Entertainment Lionsgate
Country: United States – French
Language: English
Release Date: May 31, 2013 (United States)
July 31, 2013 (France)
Cast
Jesse Eisenberg
as J. Daniel Atlas
Mark Ruffalo
as Dylan Rhodes
Woody Harrelson
as Merritt McKinney
Isla Fisher
as Henley Reeves
Dave Franco
as Jack Wilder
Mélanie Laurent as Alma Dray
Morgan Freeman
as Thaddeus Bradley
Michael Caine
as Arthur Tressler
Plot
Four gifted street magicians — J. Daniel Atlas, Merritt McKinney, Henley Reeves, and Jack Wilder are brought together by an unknown benefactor and one year later, perform in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen", sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler. 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 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, a former magician who makes money by revealing the secrets behind other magicians' tricks. Thaddeus was in the audience and deduced that the Horsemen replaced the money weeks before and manipulated the audience's perception of current events, the fake money notes in the bank vault at Crédit Républicain having been counterfeited on flash paper.
Dylan, Alma, and Thaddeus attend the 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 hypnotised 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, Alma learns about rumors of a secret society of magicians called "The Eye", who steal from the rich and powerful to give to the needy, and suggests to a skeptical Dylan the case might be tied to a magician named Lionel Shrike, whom Thaddeus had exposed 40 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 presumed dead when his car crashes and 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. 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 a forgery 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, Alma 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. Alma, however, decides not to turn him in. Alma takes a lock and a key that Dylan magically produces as he proclaims, "One more secret to lock away." After Alma 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.
After the beginning of the credits roll in, it is seen that the Four Horsemen have driven to a wasteland in the middle of a desert. All of them enter and find a secret room containing boxes full of their new magic equipment. They turn to Merritt and ask him for his individual card to open the boxes, and to his surprise he finds it in his back pocket. This is not present in the DVD version.
