8 Movies That Fooled Us Twice
6. The Prestige
At the core of The Prestige are two magicians, Christian Bale’s Borden and Hugh Jackman’s Angier, trying to sabotage and outdo the other as part of their escalating rivalry. Angier finds himself stumped by his foe’s latest illusion where he seems to teleport from one side of the stage to the other in a split second. Whilst he can poorly imitate this with a lookalike, Angier hungers for more.
The two magician’s takes on The Transported Man both have their own shocking revelations.
After commissioning scientist Nikola Tesla to build him a mysterious machine, Borden is confused at how Angier has stolen his prized illusion. Sneaking under the stage he finds that the machine clones Angier every time, and the original is dropped into a tank to drown so as to not create the kind of problems you would expect with clones.
All of the terrifying lengths Angier went to are even more haunting when Borden’s version was quite simple: he had a twin. They both agreed to live the same life in secret which meant they were able to pull this trick off with relative ease. It also meant that, when Borden was hanged, his brother was still out there and able to surprise both the audience and their rival Angier by shooting him dead.
The Prestige is Christopher Nolan’s storytelling at its best; a never-ending and jaw-dropping series of twists and turns that captivates from start to finish.