Now who does not enjoy a good magic trick?  Even when growing up, I enjoyed the illusions that magicians put out in front of me.  Even if it was not real, my head would be filled with joy as a quarter was pulled out of my ear, or a rabbit was pulled out of hat.  I never really cared about the validity of the trick as it was mainly for entertainment purposes, but sometimes I would try to figure out how they did it so I could try to do it myself.

Four struggling magicians have been sought out to join forces to create the largest magic show ever comprised.  With everyone already knowing each other and their acts, it is a winning combination that will leave the world breathless.  Being backed by a rich benefactor, the group has sold their show idea and now has to put it into motion to gain the fanfare of the public.

Even though the group does not know who they are working for, they are being led by Daniel Atlas who is trying to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch. Being joined by his old assistant Henley Reeves, a mentalist Merritt McKinney and a street performer Jack Wilder the group incorporates all of the greatest magic tricks that will fill the arena.  But their newest trick gets the attention of the FBI as they robbed a bank in Paris and gave all of the money to their fans in the audience. 

Now being tracked by Agent Rhodes of the FBI and Agent Dray from Interpol, the group of magicians has to stay with the script that they have been provided with to keep ahead of the law.  When the group is called in for questioning in the bank robbery that took place at their show, they made sure not to answer any question directly and showed off their skills to prove that their skills were real, but if they were arrested, that would only make the agencies look foolish by admitting that they believed in magic and that would only make the show more popular.  Trying to figure out what the Four Horsemen would try to do next, Agent Rhodes has called for help from a man that has made his living from debunking the tricks, but not really understanding what is in store, Rhodes always seems to be a step behind the group as they end up redistributing their benefactor’s money.

Now You See Me follows agents Rhodes and Dray as they try to figure out the grand design of what the Four Horsemen are trying to accomplish.  With every magician in the group having their own set of skills of deception, it is next to impossible to get a read on them.  After their first show was a success, the group sets their sights higher and redistributes all of their benefactor’s money to the people of New Orleans that were shorted after the hurricane took their livelihood away and the insurance company would not cover their losses.  With now making more enemies than friends the group has set their sights higher once again, but when a magic debunker is now being paid by the man they stole from, the ‘Robin Hoods’ of magic will have to watch their steps as everyone is looking to stop them before their next grand illusion. 

Just a great storyline with some of the best actors in the game all coming into make, dare I say it, something magical.  Even in a movie, their tricks are just as good as if you have seen them on a street corner.  With plenty of levity in the film as well, it is hard not to fall in love with the Four Horsemen as they are trying to reach their ultimate goal.  Also watching how agent Rhodes has to learn how to accept that he is being played by the magical group and has to put his trust into people he does not really know is great for his character.  Can you ever trust a magician….I mean really trust one as they are just trying to make you look one way as they can literally steal the rug right out from under you.  Happy Viewing.

Pulling the perfect con is something that everyone can do, but several people try it whether it be to make extra money or to make their relationships work.  If you are looking to do this, there are a couple of things that are essential.  Have confidence, pretend to be someone you are not and make sure that your cover will not be blown.  For some people these necessities come easy, but for others it takes many years and several failures until they get it just right. 

Roy Dillon has perfected the small con and for the most part he gets away with it.  With play on words and slight of hand, he has made a good living for himself until he gets caught.  Being punched in the stomach and suffering internal bleeding, Roy has to be taken to the hospital by his mother who he wants to owe nothing to for the years of neglect.  Although his mother, Lilly has made a great life for herself as well, Roy will not allow himself to be in her debt and will do everything in his power to pay her back.

Lilly’s new business is working for a bookie named Bobo who keeps his eyes and profits on the race tracks.  Having the inside on what horses will win, Bobo pays Lilly to put his money down on the long shots with the largest payoff, but when she misses a race where a seventy to one horse comes in first, he is beyond upset.  Making a special visit out to California to confront Lilly about what happened, Bobo threatens to kill her for the loss of so much money and gets Lilly to come clean about skimming from his winnings.  Lilly admits to taking his money but also comes clean that the only reason she missed the race was to take care of her son. 

With Lilly now being put on top of Bobo’s radar, she cannot afford another loss or she will be killed and not seeing eye to eye with her son’s girlfriend, she will have to find another way to survive.  Myra Langtry is another con artist that wants to get back into the game and finding out that her boyfriend Roy is working cons to pay back his mother, she wants to get in on the action once again.  Making plans to start up a high paying long con, Myra is astonished to find out that Roy is not onboard with her.  She blames the love for his mother and will do anything to get Lilly out of her man’s life.

The Grifters is a story about the dysfunctional relationship between Roy and Lilly Dillon as they meet up after being apart for over ten years.  Knowing that each one is working an angle, they do not trust each other, but that is far from their biggest challenge.  With his girlfriend not meeting the approval of his mother, Roy decides not to trust her with anything, especially when she finds out he is in the con business.  Having turned her down for a long con that would pay off in the five digits category, Myra tries to find a way to get Roy’s mother out of the picture so he will do the jobs she excels at.  Finding on her own that Lilly has a trunk full of cash, she makes a call to Bobo and forces Lilly to run, but Roy’s love is much stronger than Myra could have ever imagined. 

With all of the financial troubles that are still out there, it is good to see what kind of ways people are willing to go to make an extra buck and the con seems to be one of the tops.  Even though they are not as extravagant as in the movies, people are still trying to pull the sheep’s wool over our eyes and take our money without doing a thing for it.  With great characters, this movie shows you how easy it is to pull a con if you have the soft enough morals to allow yourself to get away with it.  Pulling a con for money is one thing, but if you try to pull a con for a relationship, you might get more than you bargained for.  Happy Viewing.

Having a strong and secure relationship is hard enough these days, but being added into the limelight and having the media following your every move has to be crazy.  With so many movie stars trying to find or keep a relationship outside of the cameras seems to be impossible these days and it just leads to more and more crazy stories.  Although we eat this up as a viewing audience, I feel sorry for these people as every step they take is being followed by the world, as if we do not have enough to worry about these days.

Eddie Thomas and Gwen Harrison have been dubbed America’s Sweethearts and for good reason.  Every movie these two have worked on together have become box office hits with their on and off the screen chemistry.  But when the couple broke up, everything started to go wrong for the stars and the viewing audience seemed to turn on them.  Even though Gwen tried with all of her might to say in the limelight, her fans continued to criticize her about her new life decisions.

Eddie has stayed away from the cameras since the breakup, keeping it low key in a secluded retreat for six months.  Although he does not feel as if he has obtained his enlightenment yet, he is convinced by his friendly movie publicist Lee Phillips to come back down to earth and attend the press junket for the couples last film together.  Needing to find a way to promote the movie positively, Lee is urged to get the couple back together so the press will give the unseen film raving reviews, but Eddie and Gwen have ulterior motives about seeing each other.

With his work complete, Lee is able to get the couple to attend, but what he does not foresee is that the situation is changing drastically.  With Gwen sending her sister Kiki to see and talk to Eddie with any problems she has, Eddie starts to find out where his heart really stands.  Having cameras all around the junket, Eddie is in the wrong place as the wrong time and many different reports keep coming through about how unstable he really is and Gwen finally agrees to talk to him face to face.  What the couple does not know is that they are never alone as everyone is trying to break the story about them getting back together.

America’s Sweethearts follows the lives of Eddie Thomas and Gwen Harrison as they have cut ties and moved in different directions.  As Gwen has found love in the arms of another man, Eddie has taken to seclusion away from the cameras.  When the director of the couple’s last film decides not to give the studio first look and will only show it at the press junket, the studio publicist has to find a way to get the popular couple back together, if only to keep the press’ mind off of how bad the movie might be.  When Gwen makes her assistant and sister be the go between her and Eddie, the situation starts to change as Eddie finds out that his feelings have changed about the women he has loved for so many years.  As the junket continues and new stories keep arising about the couples chances of getting back together, Eddie has to make a decision about where his heart really stands.

Just a cute and harmless movie that will make you laugh and possibly think about what you would do if put into the same situation as the popular stars.  With a fun little story line and a star studded cast being led by John Cusack and Catherina Zeta-Jones, you have Julia Roberts and Billy Crystal picking up the pieces along with the crazy Christopher Walken and one of my favorite character actors Hank Azaria handing in plenty of comic relief.  It might never be the number one movie in the land, but with plenty of comedy and a ton of emotion, it has moved its way up to one of my favorite romantic comedies.  Happy Viewing.  

Having a strong moral code is nothing to be ashamed of.  Even if you notice that other people do not live by the morals you were raised with, it is no reason to change what you believe in.  Morals help define a person and their beliefs, they are difficult to change once a person has gained hold of them, but if they are taken away, that person is just a shell of who they formally were.

Doctor King Schultz has given up his life of being a dentist for the more lucrative living of being a bounty hunter in the United States.  Being paid to bring criminals to justice, dead or alive, the doctor seems to have found a new profession.  Needing a way to track down his next bounty, Schultz decides to find a slave that worked on the plantation with his next targets.  Finding the man he is looking for, Schultz is happy to find that Django has more of a heart than was expected and the two enter into a business proposition together.

Hearing the Django is married and his wife is still a slave somewhere in the south, Schultz decides to help his new partner find his wife and free her, the same way he has freed Django.  Understanding that this venture will take a lot of time, Schultz teaches Django the bounty hunting business over the long winter and his happy to discover the this former slave has a knack for this work.  Killing the bad men and collecting the money on their heads seems to be a great job as Django is able to eliminate some of his past foes. 

All is well and good for the two man bounty hunting team and Dr. Schultz stays true to his word and when the summer comes around again, he searches for Django’s wife.  Finding a lead in Mississippi, on a famed plantation called Candyland, the two must devise a plan to get close to its owner to see if the women still exists.  Posing as a pair of slave traders, the two are able to get close to this Mister Candie showing interest in the slave fighting world which he seems to be king of.  Being able to befriend this slave owner, the two find out that he is much more passionate about his trade than anyone would give him credit for and witness firsthand the life of a third generation slaver.

Django Unchained follows the path of Dr. King Schultz and his new partner Django as they take over the bounty hunting game in the United States.  With Django being a newly freed slave, Schultz has to learn the hard way about how people really see the black man in the states while slavery is still very much alive and well.  Wanting to show that Django is a free man, Schultz makes sure that the members of the law he works with recognize young Django so he will gain his own fame of being a bounty hunter and will not be shot down like a dog in the street.  Schultz has another goal however and that is to train Django in the bounty hunter trade and find his wife while working their way south.  When locating Django’s wife on a famous plantation called Candyland, the two have to befriend a longtime slave owner that only sees his slaves as dollar signs and not people.  Having to adapt to this new way of thinking to fit in, Schultz’s character is called into play by Mr. Candie as he tries to educate the doctor in the ways of the south.

This is one of those movies you will either love or hate.  I loved it for the fact that the director did not pull any punches and everyone on the screen seemed to go along with it. With powerful performances from Jamie Foxx and the great Christoph Waltz, I must admit that to me, Leonardo DiCaprio blew them all away with his rendition of Calvin Candie.  In each scene with Mr. Candie, you seemed to go deeper and deeper into his character until there was no place else to go and I think that is what made this movie great in my eyes, along with a gun battle for the ages.  Not a movie for the squeamish, but if you are the mood for a new take on a western movie, look no further.  Happy Viewing.

With all kinds of trouble around the country, not everyone pays attention to who the real con artists are.  With so many people paying for scams, be it something on the internet, cashing a check from Siberia or roofers that never come back after getting a check.  It is hard to know who you can trust these days, but your family and friends should always be on that list as they would never do anything to take advantage of your trust.

Roy Waller and Frank Mercer are at the top of their games, running scams that allow them to get paid twice from their marks.  Running cold calls and telling the winners that they will not have to pay any tax on their winnings if they purchase a water filter for much higher than market value, then posing as federal agents and getting all of the account information from the unknowing victims.  It’s a good life and the two are doing just fine, but Roy has been able to save all of his money while Frank has a hard time staying in the black.

Roy has many phobias and each time something is done out of the ordinary he starts to have attacks.  Dropping his medication down the garbage disposal and having his past shrink moving away, Roy is forced to go to a new psychologist who forces him to go through sessions before getting any new pills to keep his fears at bay.  When Roy divulges that he may have a child to his new doctor, it is recommend that he call and find out for sure.  Not being able to do it himself, he asks that his doctor make the call and during his next session, Roy finds out he is a father and his daughter would like to meet him.

Changing his life around and having to make room for another person is something that Roy had never wanted to do, but with the appearance of his daughter Angela at his doorstep one night, he is forced to change his ways.  With the affect Angela has on his life, Roy decides to go in on a long con with his partner that will make them both wealthy men, but what Roy did not think about is what this could do to his life.  With a daughter now, he tries to keep his job and home life separated along with keeping his partner happy, but when the job goes south, he has to watch out for more than just the man that lost his money.

Matchstick Men focuses around the life of Roy Waller, a phobic con man that has more problems than anyone could possibly live with.  Being paired up with his longtime partner Frank, Roy feels comfortable with the small time jobs they are pulling, but Frank wants to pull the big con for big time money.  Roy is hesitant in doing this, but when he finds out that he is a father, all bets are off the table as his life starts to change for the better.  Feeling comfortable around people and their mannerisms, Roy decides to take the job, but something goes wrong and now he is being targeted by the mark, along with his team.  Needing to find a way to get clear of what happened, Roy finds that he might have been right not letting anyone get close to him, but is it too little too late?

One of those movies that you have to watch very carefully from beginning to end if you want to try to predict who is conning who.  Roy is a likeable character and Frank is very charismatic and when you add young Angela into the mix, it is just a trio of joy.  Watching Roy have to grow into his father role right in front of your eyes is a great transformation and even though you might feel a little bit bad for him and all of his quirks, he is only trying to do right for the daughter he neglected for so many years.  If you have any love for Nicholas Cage or Sam Rockwell, this movie showcases both of their strengths and none of their weaknesses.  Happy Viewing.

How are so many people around the world able to get what they want, even if they do not deserve it?  One word, Confidence.  Having confidence is something that we should all be able to show, but for many of us, we are afraid of what could happen, rather than what is happening for us right now.  To show that you believe in what you are doing or saying can be difficult, but once you are able to do so, different doors will open for you that you never expected.

Jake Vig is good at what he does for no other reason than he believes in what he is doing.  Being a con man, it is important that he does so.  Having to make his marks believe in every word that comes out of his mouth is the only way he can make a living and with a crew of professionals, Jake is nothing but the best at what he does.  Making sure that he does not stay in one place too long to get figured out by the locals has worked well for Jake in the past, but when he fleeces one of the top independents in town, Jake’s life is about to change.

After being caught stealing from The King, Jake is forced to clear his slate by working a con against the town’s most powerful mob lawyer.  Having to come up with a con that will put himself and his team in the clear, Jake is forced to add a couple of new members to his crew and put trust in people he normally would not.  With one of the King’s men on his payroll and picking up a young, attractive pickpocket from a club, Jake has his new team in place and is ready to pull the job of a lifetime. 

With his plan and team in place, Jake is ready to pull the trigger on the job, but when his ego gets too big, he is faced with not only having to pull his job, but to do it against his crew that knows the ins and outs of the con.  With having a couple of local cops on his payroll, Jake knows he can be protected for a time, but when his new mark finds out what he is up to, he employs a new money body guard that can work outside the law and bring Jake to his knees.  Jake is forced to tell his story to this bounty hunter and come clean, but the only thing that the he really wants, is to know where the money is.  If Jake cannot provide it, he will be another con artist that is found dead in the gutter. 

Confidence follows expert con artist Jake Vig as he is only trying to make a buck, but finds that he has stolen from the wrong man.  Jake is forced to take a job that he normally would pass on to clean his slate with The King and has to come up with a way to pull the job of a lifetime.  Having The King looking over his shoulder along with a customs agent that is looking for revenge, Jake has to pull out all of the stops and bring a bigger team together to make sure the job will go off without a hitch.  When his team starts to fall apart however, Jake has more than just The King, his new mark and a custom agent trying to stop him, but his own team member that is looking for a percentage that she is about to lose out on.

I cannot lie, this is one of my favorite movies and find myself watching it more often than not.  With a great cast and a strong storyline, this movie brings more emotion to the screen than anyone could have ever expected.  With Dustin Hoffman playing the notorious King who has ADHD and does not pull any punches as he tries to coach young Jake Vig in pulling off the con of a lifetime.  There are more than enough one liners in this movie to make this a memorable movie, but if the opening scene does not capture you, you will not understand what is about to happen as the movie progresses.  It may be a little old, but it does not disappoint and should be watched by anyone that enjoys a good story, along with those who need to find a way to act confident.  Happy viewing.

The mind is the most powerful tool that anyone will ever possess.  It controls everything that we do, from shaking hands to writing fantastic novels.  It is the one thing that if you can control correctly will bring you happiness and keep you from harm.  But if you lose control of your mind, it can play all kinds of tricks on you and you will not be able to decipher reality from fiction.

Marshal Teddy Daniels is on his way to Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane with new partner Chuck Aule.  Although this is a new relationship between the two men, they both put each other at ease and feel as if they have known each other for years.  With their emerging friendship, Daniels makes sure not to keep anything from his partner and will keep him in the know for the upcoming events.

A patient was reported missing and Daniels jumped at the opportunity to get to the island to investigate, but he has an alternate motive as he has heard that the man who killed his wife would be receiving treatment at the hospital.  Being greeted by the head of security, Teddy and Chuck are forced to give up their weapons if wanting to enter any crevice of the island so nobody will get hurt.  Although they fight this rule, they must comply so they can meet the head of the facility, Dr. Cawley.

The good doctor believes that all of his patients are curable and tries every alternative situation before turning to drugs for the treatment.  Albeit, he has failed in the past, he is not ever willing to give up on any of his patients.  Teddy and Chuck take note in this, but all that Teddy wants to do is to locate Andrew Laeddis, the man who killed his wife.  Not having full run of the facility hinders Teddy’s search for the man, but when a hurricane hits the island and knocks out the power, he is able to gain full reign of Ashecliffe Hospital.  Running into strange characters and fighting back his own nightmares, Teddy is able to locate an old friend, George Noyce who tells Teddy about the island and what was really happening on the premises. 

Shutter Island takes a long hard look into the life of Teddy Daniels as he is assigned to find a missing person from a secluded island hospital.  Teddy takes the liberty to also fulfill his need of vengeance in trying to locate the man who killed his wife while on the island.  Battling with migraines, an uncooperative staff, the weather and his own dreams, Teddy finds clues of what is really happening on the island and will do everything in his power to stop it when returning to the main land. When the storm outside gets worse, the storm that burns within Teddy gets fierce as he loses all ties to reality while on the island for the criminal insane.  

One thing about a good thriller movie is how the story flows and this one does just that.  With clues around every corner and people acting strangely towards the Marshal’s, it is still a great twist to see how the movie ends.  With the flashbacks that Teddy suffers while thinking he is being drugged, it is just amazing to see how he is able to hold it together for so long.  Having a goal is the only thing that keeps the Marshal from going insane in such an intense situation and makes the movie just that better.  With enough scares and a strong story, this should be added to anyone’s list that likes a mystery or something that is just that much different from the normal.  Happy viewing.