The Illusionist 2006 – One of the best Hollywood productions in recent times

The Illusionist 2006 – One of the best Hollywood productions in recent times 

The Illusionist, which was released on August 18, 2006 and expanded nationwide on September 1, is an English-language period drama film written and directed by Neil Burger. It is one of the best Hollywood
productions in recent times, especially for the people who are fascinated by magicians and classy romantic drama sets.

The film, which sees Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti playing lead roles in it, is based on loosely on Steven Millhauser’s short, “Eisenheim the Illusionist.” The film is all about a supernaturally
talented magician, Eisenheim (Edward Norton), who with uses his extra-ordinary skills and powers to secure his love, Jessica Biel (Sophie).

Eisenheim, who original name in the movie is Edward Abramowitz, is shown as a poor boy that falls in love with a beautiful young duchess, Sophie but no one allows them to be together because of the difference
in their status. Edward therefore leaves 19^th century Vienna in order to pursue his other love.

Edward then appears fifteen years later as the renowned ‘Eisenheim the Illusionist’. He shows people some great illusions, which were seen by no one ever before, as a result to which he gets labelled as
one of the greatest practitioners of the craft who ever lived.

While entertaining people through his shows he finds Sophie and her fiancé, Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), who is an extremely jealous person.

Eisenheim soon learns that Sophie still loves him and wants to get rid of the Crown Prince, thus he makes up a plan to get rid of Leopold. Sophie also gets along with him in all this but nobody gets to
know even a little about it.

Eisenheim becomes one of the most popular personalities in Vienna hence Leopold also comes up to see his show. He tries to figure out the tricks but he fails every time. Leopold then calls Eisenheim to
his private party, as he wanted to figure out his illusions. Nevertheless, he gets insulted again.

Meanwhile, Leopold’s security chief Uhl finds out about Sophie and Eisenheim’s love due to which Leopold confronts Sophie and accuses her of being unfaithful. Sophie however justifies herself and tries
to leave before people find her dead in the stables, with a sword cut across her neck.

Since Leopold was the Crown Prince, nobody suspects him for killing Sophie before Eisenheim brings the spirit of Sophie back in one of his shows, using new kind of a magic with the help of mysterious equipment
and Chinese stagehands.

People ask Sophie different questions about how she was murdered. Sophie tells them that she was wearing a locket when someone murdered her. After listening to it, Uhl silently investigates the stables
before he finds a jewel from the prince’s sword along with the locket.

Uhl tries to arrest Eisenheim during his performance, as Leopold had ordered him to do so, but he fails as Eisenheim’s body fades and disappears like his summoned spirits. Leopold finally shoots himself
in despair when army approaches him.

Nonetheless, the best is still to come. As Uhl leaves the palace, a little boy approaches him and delivers him an envelope. Upon opening the envelope, Uhl finds Eisenheim and Sophie are both alive and
whatever happened so far was all a part of Eisenheim’s plan.

Though Uhl never finds Eisenheim, he appreciates the masterful illusionist by taking his hat off.

If anyone has not watched this movie so far, I would strongly recommend him/her to watch it.

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Posted by Imran Shaukat Khan on Dec 29 2011. Filed under Entertainment, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry