History Headscratchers / NowYouSeeMe

*** I just watched the shuffle in slow mo. It is defiantly a trick shuffle.

** ^The last line here is the most important- although the Horsemen didn't know it, their benefactor, the "5th Horseman," was [[spoiler:Rhodes, the FBI agent investigating them]]. Among the various instructions he gave them (their targets, the plans, etc.) was probably instructions on how to get a car that was identical to a standard-issue FBI car, whether it was actually one or not (I assume the standard-issue is probably just a slightly-modified standard car, like police vehicles). Plus, the car blew up real good, so it would probably take a day or two to realize it wasn't a real FBI car- much like the body inside would eventually be identified as not being the magician. Since their plan was finishing up that night, the "trick" didn't have to stand up to close scrutiny. I was surprised, though, that the helicopter filming the chase didn't catch the switch- or that no one noticed a NYC bus with a car attached to the front bumper!

*** It's possible due to [[spoiler:Rhodes having been in on it]] the "fake" FBI was actually a legitimate vehicle stolen for use in this particular chase. Also, as for identifying the corpse as Jack Wylder, that probably wouldn't have been possible. The body was obliterated in the explosion and the authorities likely did not have DNA evidence with which to identify it. Perhaps, had Rhodes been able to pull the body from the wreck before the explosion they could have discerned that it was, in fact, a decoy. But the Horsemen were likely assured this would not be an issue.

Leaving [[spoiler: Rhodes]] out of it for the moment, do the Four Horsemen ''really'' qualify as Anti-Villains? Sure they don't keep the money they steal but they are doing their robberies with the intention of getting a very significant reward rather than simply out of some sense of social justice. What's more they [[spoiler: apparently had no problem framing Bradley ''without'' knowing why their sponsor hated him him so much - remember they had no clue Rhodes was behind everything, let alone that it was part of his RoaringRampageOfRevenge.]]
** Remember: Bradley had made a career out of discrediting and exposing magicians. The Horsemen probably had no problem framing him because he made EVERY magician look bad, and [[spoiler:Rhodes]] simply was trying to give him a trick he would ''never'' figure out.
** That's true but it's also a pretty severe case of DisproportionateRetribution; Bradley might be a {{Jerkass}} but what he was doing was completely legal and framing him didn't directly help anyone in the way robbing Tressler or the bank did. Again [[spoiler: Rhodes]] has a legitimate reason to hate Bradley, regardless of whether his actions are justified or not. The Four Horsemen have no legitimate personal excuse.
*** Another fact of the matter is that Bradley's actions led to a man's death and he changed ''nothing'' about his methodology. There was no regret, no remorse, nothing. And he takes people's livelihoods away, who knows if there's been another Shrike in his history that just went out in a less ostentatious way? Just because an action is legal doesn't mean it's not ''wrong.'' The way this entire thing was set-up, if Bradley hadn't be so eager to go after the Horseman, he never would have gotten tangled in the con. [[spoiler:Dylan and]] the Horseman did ''nothing'' to invite him into this mess aside from taunt him when their paths naturally crossed. I'd go so far as to say that was a deliberate part of the plan, so that Bradley truly had no one but himself to blame all those years in jail.

*** But the FBI sought him out as an expert in debunking magicians! He didn't go after the Four Horsemen of his own volition, he was guided to them. His appearance at their first act in Vegas was nothing more than his doing his job. As for his actions leading to a man's death, that's a pretty silly way to assign blame; Bradley had nothing to do with Shrike's idea to lock himself in a safe and be dumped in a river. Even Elkhorn could be argued to have been involved if they sponsored the stunt and then [[spoiler: provided a faulty safe]] but all Bradley did was ''his exact job.'' All magicians deal with people who want to debunk them.

*** Indeed, it's entirely possible that a message was left in Bradley's car, suggesting that the Horsemen ''had'' been working with him, but had decided to shaft the guy by rigging his vehicle to belch money after his plan got one of their number [[spoiler: seemingly]] killed.

* Regarding the first heist, it's possible that Bradley is simply wrong. The heist may not have gone as he said (and if even it mostly did, it may not have been done by the Horsemen themselves). The money dropped on the show, if it was real, may not have been the ''same'' money that was stolen from the bank. The movie repeatedly drives home the point of misdirection, after all.

** There is also the possibility that the Horsemen knew that the FBI that would believe that Bradley obviously hadn't performed the last bit, but that the money showing up in his car was another case of biting the hand that'd fed you, as they'd done with Tressler. Considering that Bradley always seemed to know what the Horsemen were up to, a case could be made that he was part of the act and was turned on later.

* How did Merritt hypnotize an entire audience to partake in a philharmonic upon hearing the word "Bullshit?" Did Merritt also manage to single out Bradley who they knew would be in the audience, and hypnotize him to not question being imprisoned? It was mentioned Merritt can hypnotize people on the phone. Maybe somewhere offscreen, he gave Bradley a call.
** Fuller says only "half the audience" was hypnotized into thinking they were in the philharmonic orchestra. Only ''half''. Obviously Bradley was not in the half that did get hypnotized.

*** How was he "teleported" back to Las Vegas? He couldn't have fit through that ventilation grille like the banknotes did!

Although it's only [[MorganFreeman Thaddeus Bradley's]] guess, the first heist is "revealed" to be an armored truck job. This, however, raises just as many questions. First of all, how did they substitute the armored truck for one with a hiding space that two people would hide in? Secondly, how did they deal with the other guards in the truck, and please not some corny "mentalism" thing? How did they even deal with whoever would have been monitoring their progression along the route, since none of them can even fake French decently over the radio? Thirdly, how did they get the 5 million Euros back to Las Vegas in what must have been less than 10 hours, without anybody noticing? Fourthly, this trip must have come up on even the most routine background check before the FBI interrogated them. That [[MarkRuffalo Dylan]] ignores this fact because he's behind it all can just about be hand-waved, but in what alternate reality would the French agent from Interpol not be interested in asking them what they did, why they spent so long there and so forth? A fifth question is how they made good enough "fake money" to fool whoever put the money in the safe, and how they get around whatever anti-theft measures the transport company was using to protect the cash (IBNS, etc.)? The explanation is so poor that it's almost less believable than believing in the magic trick.

* The second heist doesn't even get a logical explanation beyond "magic", perhaps with a vague implication of "computers". The explanation is basically that Daniel Atlas's poor attempts at mentalism a few hours before the show revealed the answers to his bank accounts' security questions, which enabled them to transfer the funds (or something like that). Does [[MichaelCaine Arthur Tressler]] not have assistants, account managers at his bank, and so forth who would actually manage his finances for him? Wouldn't he have his assets in structured holdings so as to minimize his tax profile, which would mean most of the money isn't even available on such short notice? Of course, a detailed explanation of how his accounts are structured wouldn't be particularly compelling, but if the explanation is just that they logged onto his bank's website and set up the thousand or so wire transfers, that's almost as implausible as it being the heat of the lamps that's bouncing around tens of thousands of dollars to each person in the audience.