The Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige :Performing rules for any magician.

“The Prestige” is a movie based on the novel written by British writer Christopher Priest in 1995. The movie is about two magicians driven by the desire to become “number one”.
This cinematic piece features Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, and Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier, “magicians” who are gunning to beat the other through their performance.

The movie opens with Borden descending to the bottom beneath a stage, on which Angier is performing, and he sees Angier trapped in a glass (Houdini) box, He tries to break the glass walls to free him but fails due to the thickness of the glass.
Due to his inability to free Angier, Borden is accused of killing him and is taken into custody by the police, accused of murder. The movie goes into “flash backs”, showing Angier and Borden both being “ringers” (assistants) to another “magician”.
After the death of Angier’s wife caused by Borden, both the friends split up and go separate ways to pursue their own careers in magic. Both the magicians come up with items/performances, that distinguish them from each other. For example, Borden created the “Transported Man”, an item performed with a double, namely Borden’s twin brother.
On the other hand, Angier is given a new teleportation device made by the rival of Thomas Edison, Nikola Telsa. Through Telsa’s machine, anything that is placed in the machine is duplicated and teleported. So Angier uses this as his new “Transported Man” giving the item a new look and feel, using electricity to make him disappear.
Borden is so frustrated after watching 100 shows of Angier, and still not knowing how it is done, that he decides to go beneath the stage and have a look at the secret himself. Seeing Angier trapped in a glass box he tries to free him but is accused of murder when he fails.
The rest of the story is Borden in his cell being visited by a lawyer that wants him to reveal the secret of his “Transported Man”. Borden is hanged in the end and Cutter accompanies Angier to the storage place for the duplicates of Angier. Cutter was an illusionist engineer for Angier and also the magician Angier worked for as a “ringer”. Cutter is disgusted to see all the copies of Angier in the glass boxes and leaves him alone in the storage room.
Borden is seen entering the storage facility, then shoots Angier, and reveals that he and his assistant were twins, changing places as they saw fit. Angier’s face can be seen regretting the day he chose to go after the real “Transported Man”. The camera zooms outward showing the whole storage place full of copies of the deranged Angier.

This movie reunited Nolan, Bale and Michael Caine after their success with “Batman Begins”. Bale is at his best, fitting in to roles as if those roles were created with him in mind. Caine’s character, I guess, is more of a repetition of Alfred from “Batman Begins”. Hugh Jackman on the other hand plays his character to perfection. In this movie it shows his character’s darker side and Jackman was excellent in it. Imagine, from a hero to a villain in just a few movies (X-men and The Prestige). Nolan does a great job again casting his favorite actors in roles that make them more of an icon.
The movie is a must watch with less emphasis on special effects and more on makeup and movie magic according to wikipedia. If I were to rate the movie I would have given it a 9/10