 Are you watching closely? Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys! Hey guys, this is my review for The Prestige. This movie was part of a poll that I suggested to my Patreon supporters, and if you guys are ever interested in wanting to have a say about what I talk about and what I review, maybe consider joining my Patreon, you'll find a link for that in the description below. The Prestige was a 2006 film released by Kristen Fanol and starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as two competing magicians in a feud to one up the other, putting obsession of being the best above all else and driving them both to their own forms of madness. And I will start off by saying this is probably withstanding the Dark Knight trilogy, my all-time favorite Christopher Nolan film. I love the story, I love the art production, I love the setting, I love the characters, I love how the film plays out thematically, I love the music, I love David Bowie as Tesla. Everything about this movie is so damn good and I believe one of the biggest factors about it is it openly talks about the illusion of magic, of what magicians do, the showmanship of it. Rather than playing into the fantasy that magic is real, it's talking about how these guys perform their feats, perform their sleight of hands back in the day. I'll be a bit of a cynic here and I've never much enjoyed magicians. Funny enough too because this movie came out the same year as The Illusionist, that Edward Norton movie that just full-on dipped into the whole magic thing except they said that the plant thing at the end was some sort of mechanic even though they couldn't make it, they had to do it with CG, which I didn't like The Illusionist at all. This movie is so damn good that I still actually have the first DVD copy I ever got of the film. Remember these on DVDs? They would lock the movie, like for some reason you really needed some sort of vice death grip to make sure your movie didn't get out. The other thing that's actually quite funny about this DVD edition is it's full screen. It also has a bunch of old movie trailers, it even has the coming soon to theaters thing on it which just gave me such a huge smile, it even made my wife smile. Another fantastic aspect about this movie is the characters and how they are both bad and good people. I find myself rooting for both sides when I watch this movie and that's a film that you can enjoy. Both characters are protagonists and each opposing character is their antagonist. Michael Cain kind of more so sides with Hugh Jackman's character for the majority of the movie but he's kind of the overseer, the old guard in terms of teaching these two what to do. These two are constantly circling around the theme of obsession. They're constantly trying to one up each other. They are obsessed with figuring out how one does the other trick and performing it in a different way. All of it stemming from the transported man trick which is the one where Christian Bale is able to pass a ball to himself but it also stems back to Hugh Jackman's character's wife dying. And Robert Angier watches his wife drown to death in front of his eyes and Alfred Borden can't remember the knot that he tied. It turns them against each other. What was a somewhat slim friendship turns into full on chaos between the two with Angier going full on revenge at one point wanting to do nothing but harm Borden whereas Borden wants to move on and try and make something for himself. The two have their own positives and negatives. Borden is a fantastic magician but a terrible showman whereas Angier is the far better showman of the two while being somewhat of a copycat in terms of magician aspects. He's about the showmanship and about the fame of it all whereas Borden constantly just wants to be the best and prove something different. This film is based off of a book by Christopher Priest which I've never read but I've always wanted to because I've heard that Priest didn't have much say of anything about this movie. Nolan got the rights for the novel and that was it. I remember reading an article talking about there being kind of this very gray area in terms of how the adaptation of the film happened. I'm very curious if the book is anywhere similar to this film. The fact that it takes place in the Victorian London is so damn fitting. The production does a fantastic job of putting you in that setting. It's constantly giving you that feeling of being in that time period and it also will show the beauty of it and the simplicity. When Angier goes to Colorado that is one of the best opening shots of the film. Speaking of which, I love how this film is edited. Speaking of Dunkirk aside, this is probably the most ballsy form of storytelling narrative non-linear editing that Nolan's ever done. Sure you could talk about Memento which works backwards but at least that isn't a fluid motion almost. Dunkirk kind of starts at the beginning and then works towards the end but there's a little bit of back and forth and maybe in the middle whereas the prestige starts in the middle and then it works from the beginning in the middle to eventually the two catch up to each other and then it goes into the final act. I remember watching this movie when I was 16 years old and being absolutely fascinated by the editing of this film. Lee Smith won an award for Dunkirk. He's been Nolan's homie for editing for quite some time and the fact that he never won an Oscar for Inception is a goddamn crime and the fact that he didn't win editing for this film also is a bit of a turn for me. The editing in this film is seamless. The pacing is fan-god-damn-tastic. You never are bored. You're never checking your phone. You're never out of the narrative. You're never out of these two journeys. You're constantly given the story either through dialogue or visual representation. There's some of my favorite shots in this film including the end of the film where Angie is shot and the ball rolls towards the shooter. Borden reaches down but the first thing you see is his damaged hand. Oh that's such a good shot. So well done. There's this aspect of thematic storytelling in this film that is so subtle but it's still there. Maybe the most stupendous example would be when they go to Tesla and there's all of the use of light and the conduits that Tesla used. Which by the way that aspect of taking a actual historical figure and putting it into the story and then showing how he was constantly just trying to make something different where Edison was on the rampage to control everything and ruin Tesla is kind of a parallel to Borden and Angier. Angier is almost on the same level as Edison where as Borden is like that of Tesla. In David Bowie's performance as Tesla is very well done. His portrayal of Tesla is very fun to watch because he has this era of mystery about him and who better to play him than fucking David Bowie. I liked his inclusion to the story. I like his foreboding nature. I liked that he gave Angier this idea of magic to science and also Andy circus is pretty cool to see as not golem does wear a top hat real well too. Which again talking about the production design this film is just fantastic and marvelous to see overall the prestige is a fantastic movie through and through while it may not have the over indulgence into thematic visual storytelling with an IMAX camera which Christopher Nolan is now 100% known for. The fact that the film has to rely off of its narrative rather than doing a sort of big visual opening up the screen for IMAX. I think is what makes this movie just so top notch. It doesn't matter that you're not getting this big wide screen action pieces. You're getting a story that's so damn good. The quote on this case is 100% true is done by Peter Travers from Rolling Stone. You want to see it again the second it's over. And I remember talking about it with my brother and my cousin when we had seen it. We were eating at the Boston Pizza across the street. That's the impression this movie left on me. I can remember the dinner I had right after watching it. It's one of my favorite movies that no one's ever made. It could be in my top 20. I've never done top 20, I've never done top 10 but it's probably my top 20. And obviously the twist, the twist that follows the twist that follows the twist. It turns out all along that Borden has been actually twins and one person sharing one life causing chaos for his wife and for everyone else around him but keeping that dedication to that illusion. You see, Andrew has actually been killing himself to do this trick so he would throw Borden in jail and then at the end of the movie. This part I actually really enjoy is that I still don't know how exactly Anjir has been doing his trick the whole time. He even talks about you don't know whether you'll be the man on the stage or the man going into the box. And this leads me to the question that I've had for the longest time. Is the original Anjir dead? Or has it been a clone constantly going on top of the box, going in and drowning and it's the real Anjir up on the stage, welcoming the applause because that's what he's wanted this whole time. He hated having to be underneath. But at the same time, you wonder is it worth it to him so much that he would die and have a second version of himself receive that glory that he's willing to kill himself to take that leap to get that fame to be that good. And that's what I love about the ending is I still don't know. And that was Nolan's point. That's the whole idea of the movie. It doesn't matter if you're looking, you want to be fooled. And the three stages of the trick are the constant theme and the prestige being the title and in correspondence with the turn are parts used as narrative structures in this film. It's just stupendous to watch. So in the end, if it wasn't obvious enough already, I'm going to give the prestige a seven out of seven. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters for choosing this. Over the other one, which funny enough, I'm actually still going to review that just because because I actually thought that was going to win until the prestige came around. But you know what? It's it's great to actually get to review it. Speaking of which, if I can find it in here, this leads me to something. OK, that took a while, but I finally found it. Does anyone remember what this bucket is? Yes, it's my dark night popcorn bucket that I got when the movie came out when I saw it on midnight release. But it's also my movie bucket. Remember that thing that I totally abandoned like four years ago now? Oh, Nolan movie, I'm going to be doing the prestige next. I'm looking forward to that, because this actually I just saw it recently. So there we go. Oh, crap. So now I'm going to pull another one. All right. And L.A. Confidential, I literally just watched this. This is easy. All right. Anyways, guys, I hope you enjoyed this review. I've really enjoyed talking about this movie. It's been really enjoyable. It's been very fun, and I hope you guys enjoyed the review. If you are interested in maybe supporting me on Patreon and getting to have some sort of say in what I talk about and what I review next, check it out in the description below. And if you're interested, maybe support. Hope you guys are well. Hope you enjoy the video and I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching the video. My name is Nitz and you might remember me from the animated cult classic TV show Undergrads. It's been a while, but I'm happy to say the click is finally getting back together in an all new movie, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. But we are still asking for your support to see any and all updates about the upcoming Undergrads movie. Be sure to check out and like the bring back undergrads Facebook page. And with any luck, we'll see you guys soon.