The intricate spell of The Illusionist

The Illusionist casts an exquisitely bewitching spell with its dreamy atmosphere and pervasive sense of suspense.
Writer/director Neil Burger has fashioned a beautifully shot mystery, with precise and elegant attention to period detail, which heightens the sense of intrigue in this romantic thriller.
Set in Vienna circa 1900, the well-crafted tale is bolstered by the powerful performance of Edward Norton as a master magician named Eisenheim. Just as strong in their respective portrayals are Paul Giamatti as an ambitious but conflicted police inspector and Rufus Sewell as the villainous Prince Leopold.
At the insistence of the prince, Giamatti’s policeman closes down Eisenheim’s popular magic show, which is steeped with almost supernatural enchantments. The prince is engaged to marry the aristocratic Sophie (Jessica Biel), and when he sees her fascination with the seemingly inscrutable Eisenheim, he is increasingly motivated to end the illusionist’s career.
As it turns out, Eisenheim and Sophie were childhood friends whose close relationship was interrupted in their early teens by her high-born parents. Since then, Eisenheim devoted his energies to perfecting his magic skills. When he meets Sophie as an adult, he is sophisticated, handsome and the toast of the town. He uses his magic prowess to win her back.
After the two rekindle their affection, Leopold tries to run the prestidigitator out of town. Eisenheim, meanwhile, is bent on undermining the royal house of Vienna.
Though there is some occasionally stilted dialogue, a fascinating contest of wills ensues, with mesmerizing plot twists.
Based on Eisenheim, the Illusionist, a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Millhauser, this suspenseful and stylish film has a welcome sense of originality given the derivative and predictable nature of so much summer fare. The story is rendered fluidly, with gorgeous production design, and the haunting score by Philip Glass adds to the spellbinding quality.
It’s a pleasure to see Norton deliver yet another remarkable performance. He shines in a wide range of disparate roles, from American History X to Fight Club to The Score.
The alluring and absorbing Illusionist proves that a film need not be mindless fluff or ridiculously far-fetched to qualify as escapist entertainment.

Breach, a game of spy vs. spy

With his second feature, director Bill Ray continues his fascination with liars who have redefined history.

Breach is a film inspired by true events about the one of our country’s greatest traitors and at first glances appears to be a boring history lesson. The movie is any but boring, rather than focusing on cheap gimmicks, it relies on a lean helping of drama engulfed by suspense. The film is a treat because it doesn’t play like most other entries in the spy genre.
Eric O’Neill, played by dead ringer Ryan Phillippe in Billy Ray’s low-key Breach, was Hanssen’s photonegative—a baby-faced go-getter trying to work his way up the ranks, a kid who loved his former job as an alleyway shadow trailing suspected terrorists. Robert Hanssen, on the other hand, was a burned-out veteran who, as early as 1980, had grown bitter toward the agency, which he considered full of Neanderthals who didn’t understand or appreciate his genius. Hanssen wasn’t merely a traitor, he was also a thrill-seeker, an Opus Dei–dreaming Catholic with a penchant for strippers and a thing for posting to the Web sexually explicit fantasies about his wife Bonnie.
Breach, which details Hanssen’s final days as a turncoat, plays like a sequel of sorts to Billy Ray’s last film, Shattered Glass, about the fabulist Stephen Glass, fired from The New Republic for proffering fiction as fact. Only this time, Ray need not stretch too far to give his story weight; he need not remind people that “The New Republic is the in-flight magazine of Air Force One” in order to justify telling the story of a twerp who did some egregious shit. This is the FBI we’re talking about, and Hanssen, played here by Chris Cooper with stolid, brute force, was a certified bad man—and a mesmerizing one as well, despite his being known as “The Mortician” within the bureau for his deadly dull demeanor. Cooper plays him as history has portrayed him: a sneering, self-righteous counterintelligence genius whose Nowhere Man exterior belied a darker truth.
Phillippe, up to now seeming like a minor-leaguer swinging a small stick in the bigs, is perfectly cast as O’Neill, who got lost in bureau offices the first day he was assigned to work undercover as Hanssen’s assistant. He positively shrinks in Cooper’s estimable presence; there are moments when you forget he’s even in the scene. Everyone in the film, including O’Neill’s direct supervisor, Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney), speaks to him like he’s incapable of deep thought. Initially, Burroughs even lies to O’Neill when giving him the assignment, telling him that Hanssen’s under surveillance because he’s a sexual deviant, not a man giving the names of U.S. spies to the Russians so they can kill them.
Like the inferior The Good Shepherd, whose release late last year caused Universal to bump Breach to the February graveyard, this is a spy movie bereft of the genre’s usual, casual kicks. But Ray’s more interested in dissecting the relationship between O’Neill and Hanssen, who resists the kid initially but then takes him in as one of his own, insisting that they go to church together and inviting him into his home. As his affection for the boy grows, Hanssen ends up trusting the last person on earth he ever should have.
The movie does not and cannot hide its ending. The finale is referenced in the very first scene, when John Ashcroft speaks to the media about Hanssen’s 2001 arrest near a footbridge in a Virginia park, where he was dropping off a cache of documents for his KGB contacts. But Ray, a storyteller in love with liars he wants to hate but cannot, doesn’t need a surprise ending. The real one’s heartbreaking enough: a tragic love story between the ticked-off traitor who thought he’d found a kindred spirit and the true believer who didn’t want to admit that his father figure was one of the world’s most dangerous men.