Sleight: O Truque Perfeito

"Sleight" had SO much potential. The magic sequences were entertaining. The performances were believable, and the characters had time to develop. The tone was set from the beginning to be tense, and the buildup was incredible. The film would keep making you think the girl would be kidnapped throughout the film, but when it finally happens, it cheaps out BIG time. All the subtleties are suddenly exaggerated. Things got silly all at the last moments of the film. The climax was boring. There was no sense of urgency anymore. The tone just INSTANTLY changes. Is this supposed to be epic? Am I supposed to be laughing? I didn't know anymore, and it didn't help that everyone's performances got goofy. The trailers were trying to sell this film as some sort of urban superhero tale, but since it took so long to get to the kidnapping, they had to cram all the heroics in at the last minute, thus wasting all the time they took developing everything including my time. What an absolute disappointment.

The movie started out fairly well with a engineering decent background for Bo, with his technical skills causing him to go to dangerous depths to better his street magic and provide for his sister. The conflict with the drugs and gangs is decently executed and the acting is good, but they really should've focused more on the actual "tricks" rather than ending with such super powered/fantastical flair.

At the start it felt like I was in for a treat. I felt like something very interesting will happen in this story. But little did I know that was the zenith of this movie. Everything went down from that cliff.

On the hindsight the story is not so different form any other poorly written action movie. The directing was interesting enough to make it seem like this had something in it. If you have watched this movie and liked it then take a break and really think about the story. It is utterly ridiculous.

This is not a good movie and I would recommend skipping it.

Besides a couple things that do feel inaccurate like the nonchalance of the main drug dealer the movie is worth a watch. But it's those little things that doesn't make Sleight a great movie. If a drug dealer would act like that he would be caught the same day. But other than that the story is entertaining. Jacob Latimore did a good job with his performance. The tricks are maybe a bit over the top, certainly at the end, but I guess it's fine being a fictional story. I don't really like magic anyways, unless you explain me the trick afterwards. But I'm not saying it's the best movie ever in this genre. But certainly better than all those negative reviewers wants to make you believe.

Sleight is not a random gangster movie, because the main character is kind of special, he can do magic tricks. And he is really good.

Well that's it. His passion is not really well-used in the plot, so it really feels anecdotal.

I always wonder why he bothers doing magic tricks when he needs money. He must be making much more money with selling drugs. I'm not sure it makes sense.

The shots around his magic tricks makes the movie special, but it goes old real quick, after 30mn. Then we forget about it, to go back to magic half-an-hour afterwards. There's a big issue in the writing. The is not enough events to keep the plot interesting after 30mn.

So yeah it's original, and well-acted, but a sad lack of structure. And the mysterious ending feels pretentious for a movie that is not cleverly constructed. It doesn't really work.