User Reviews

Con man Maykl (pronounced Michael) (Milos Bikovic) is conned out of $5-Million and gathers a group of people with Supernatural and Psychic powers to get it back within 7-days, before the Casino boss kills him..

This started out really good, but degraded into something else mostly because the background music was too loud and it was very difficult to hear conversations especially when Gordon (Antonio Banderas) is on screen. Sometimes it's difficult to hear him (Banderas) because of his accent, but when the background music chimes in, then it's almost impossible. All we really know about him is that he is aware of what Michael is up to and kind of lets us know he was pulling the strings all along. But is that true because we couldn't really hear his explanations; and, oh, yes he is Michael's father and wants Michael to team up with him for more con games.

Okay, add one more thing: most of the dialogues were dubbed in and this was most annoying.

Much CGI is used and it was okay, but ran a little long sometimes when a character goes into oblivion in his or her own mind. Okay, we get it, these people are not normal in the normal sense.

When a pretty Veronica (Lyubov Aksyonaova) goes into a coma we go into a series of strange sights and emotions as Michael get s into her mind and tries to get her back to normalcy. Her power was that she could make anyone do what she wanted, and this led me to believe that Michael didn't need all the others to get the $5-million back. He could have just used her, but then we wouldn't have had a movie, right? (right, except not sure we have one now)

Basically, this is a Russian production with a lot of CGI going on. Cut out the loud background music and dubbing and we might have had a good movie. Okay, okay and cut down on some of the CGI, too.

Like I said, this started out very good with Michael narrating what he is up to. Then when he gets conned, we lose the narrative and have to guess about everything else. When he recruits his "special people" it's done in such a way that we are not too convinced these "people "are convinced to follow him, but they do (movies can do anything they want). Kind of loose scenes here, see? (3/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Humor: Brief. Language: Only one GDI heard. Rating: D

Some of the worst acting i have ever seen. Someone did fund this movie, but all the money was put in to special effects. So a guy owe some bad people some money and he gets his hands on someone who can plant ideas in other peoples mind, and wants to use him for a con ?? The other one can change the physical state of objects and wants to help him with the con why ? This movie is just a huge disaster, actor wise and storywise. +1 for some ok effects.

First of all, there's no convincing reason why all those people with psychic powers decide to help the guy in debt. Second, why the F does he need all others to plan a scheme? He can just tell the girl to make the Casino owner forget about collecting the debt, or the autism guy could do the same thing. DOH...end of movie.

I know the main idea of the movie was to steal some money from the casino .. but let's face it .. what happened by the end ? How did they really got out with it ? And how did they leave without being caught ? And what happened when they both fell unconscious? It was very confusing and the acting was very boring, the main charecter had a "radio" voice rather than acting voice ! And it was sooo weird to fall in love with someone you barely knew in one week.

I just don't get these negative reviews. The special effects aren't bad. The story is decent. The acting is fine (even if Antonia Banderas is in a glorified cameo role that he just sleepwalks through just waiting for the paycheck).

And more importantly, it stays relatively grounded with the magical abilities. There isn't really any of that, "We're screwed until Mr. So-And-So decides to pull this deus-ex-machina ability out of his bum to save everyone." As in it's more of an Ocean's 11 than an Ocean's 12.

It starts off relatively grounded, with this guy who knows sleight of hand, how to read people, and how to count cards, trying to pull off a big win/con, only for it all to backfire horribly when he gets duped by a man who knows real magic. So now that he knows real magic users exist, he naturally goes searching for real magicians, eventually assembles a crew, and proceeds to pull off a casino heist using their abilities.

I love that the assembled team doesn't start off that well. These are magicians who have powers, but have never utilized them in such a deliberate manner, so they start off terrible when it comes to manipulating dice rolls, messing with slot machines, telepathic communication, etc. Even by the end, they aren't exactly masters of the craft, just amateurs who have improved to about intermediate level, capable of working as a team.

Of course, the filmmakers decide to throw in some Inception-inspired dream stuff during the finale more-or-less for the hell of it (and in all fairness, it's more dream-like than what Inception did). Some of the rules (for magic and inception-world) are a little wonky and head-scratching, even if the plot twist on how they get out of this dead-end trap is predictable (that they would get out of it wasn't the issue, it's the how they get out of it is a bit wonky; there's setup for it, but it's still a bit strange). But it's not insulting to the intelligence, especially compared to other heist films I've seen.

This isn't a masterpiece, but it is a solid B-movie. The only problem I had with it was this waste-of-time epilogue that seems to setup for a sequel that's never coming. That, and the over-dubbing took some getting used to. But all in all, I had fun with this. It entertained me, and that's all I wanted out of this film.

Just keep scrolling for another flick folks...if you're thinking (like Iwas) ...COOL! Another Antonio movie I've never seen-grab snacks & push play....SAVE YOURSELVES (-; soundtrack is flat-robotic-this production has no direction-borrowed plots-utter failure to "educate, entertain, & enlighten" because it was created by amateurs who have no formal training. Perfect candidate for MST3K