Monday, January 21, 2013

Magic Tricks: Will a Collection Agency Play a Part?

By Rob Sutter


Watching "The Prestige" a few nights ago, it certainly sparked my interest in magic. While I recognized that the art within is one that is based around illusion and things of that nature, the fact that I was able to learn more about it through this movie is actually quite interesting. However, the movie also showed me that these acts have a tendency to go awry. When said acts do take a turn for the worst, I think it is all the more reason for a collections agency to become involved.

One of the most common tricks one can see in magic shows is the water tank escape. There are dangers to be seen in them - to the eyes of the audience - but is always seems to go off without a hitch. However, in this movie, the way that the assistant's limbs were bound made it practically impossible to free herself, which is imperative in this sequence. Due to the horrid way that she was bound leading into the trick, a collector may have to get involved.

The bullet catch trick is one that may not be as commonly brought up but it deserves mentioning because of how disastrous it became. This was the sequence which belonged to Christian Bale's character named Alfred Borden. The issue therein is that an opposing magician played by Hugh Jackman, named Robert Angier, sabotaged it so that it fired off like a real gun. One bullet wound later and Borden lost two fingers. I'm sure you can figure out just how troubling this can be for such a line of work.

Borden and Angier are guilty of crimes against one another, adultery and attempted murder included, all because they wanted to be the best in magic. This is a profession where passion is high but one cannot deny how strong the law is. Magicians, no matter how invincible they may have believed themselves to be in this movie, could have fallen into trouble with a collections agency. R-R-S, amongst other strong organizations, are going to be the ones who will account for such costs in terms of emotional and physical damages.

"The Prestige" has taken such a fantastic craft - magic, in this case - and brought into the light the kinds of problems that these people go through. I believe that people like Borden and Angier are to blame as well since they cast aside all other matters in order to excel at magic the most. What happens when legal troubles begin to rear their ugly heads, though? This agency works well to help these cases, though one can argue that they shouldn't have come to that point.




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