Four gifted street magicians—J. Daniel Atlas,
Henley Reeves, Jack Wilder, and Merritt McKinney—are brought together by an
unknown benefactor and, one year later, perform in Las Vegas as "The Four
Horsemen," sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler. For the finale,
a member of the audience is invited to help them in their next trick: robbing a
bank. That audience member is Étienne Forcier, an account holder at the Crédit
Républicain de Paris. Forcier is apparently teleported to his bank in
Paris, where he activates an air-duct that vacuums up the money and showers it
onto the crowd in Las Vegas.
Upon discovering that the money really is
missing from the bank vault, FBI
agent Dylan Rhodes is called to investigate the theft and is partnered with Interpol agent Alma Dray.
They interrogate the Four Horsemen but release them when no explanation can be
found. Dylan meets Thaddeus Bradley, an ex-magician making money by revealing
the secrets behind other magicians' tricks. Thaddeus was in the audience and
deduced that the Horsemen stole the money weeks before and manipulated the
audience's perception of current events.
Dylan, Dray, and Thaddeus attend the next
performance in New Orleans. The group's finale involves them stealing roughly
$140 million from Tressler's bank account and distributing it to the audience,
composed of people whose insurance claims had been denied or reduced by
Tressler's company. Dylan attempts to arrest the Four Horsemen, but they escape
with help from hypnotised audience members. An infuriated Tressler hires
Thaddeus to expose and humiliate the Horsemen in their next performance. Later,
while researching the Four Horsemen's background, Dray learns about rumors of a
secret society of magicians called "The Eye," who steal from the rich
and powerful to give to the needy, and suggests to a skeptical Dylan the case
might be tied to a magician named Lionel Shrike, whom Thaddeus had exposed 30
years earlier and who was so embarrassed that he undertook a dangerous
underwater stunt involving a safe, and accidentally drowned.
The Horsemen are located in New York, but they
escape during the raid to arrest them; however, Jack is killed when he crashes
a stolen car and it bursts into flames and explodes. The remaining Horsemen vow
to continue and complete their final performance, stealing a safe made by the
same company that made the safe Lionel Shrike died in. They perform their one
last show at 5 Pointz
during which they seemingly vanish into thin air, transforming into loads of
money that is showered on the crowd. The money turns out to be fake and the
real money is found stashed in Thaddeus's Range Rover. Thaddeus is then assumed
to be the fifth Horseman and is arrested, although he claims that he was
framed.
Dylan visits Thaddeus in his cell, where
Thaddeus explains that the only way the safe could have been removed was if
Jack was still alive, but they would have also needed an inside man. Thaddeus
realizes that Dylan is the fifth Horseman when Dylan disappears from the locked
cell and reappears outside it. Dylan tells Thaddeus he wants him to spend the rest
of his life in jail and leaves as Thaddeus asks why he did it. The Horsemen are
now rejoined by Jack, whose death had been staged. They finally meet their
benefactor and are surprised to find it is Dylan. He welcomes them into
"The Eye."
Later, on the Pont des Arts in France,
Dray is met by Dylan who reveals himself to be the son of Lionel Shrike, the
magician who drowned years ago. He masterminded and designed the Horsemen plot
to obtain revenge on those involved: Thaddeus, for humiliating his father; the
Crédit Républicain de Paris and Tressler's company, who refused to pay the
insurance on his father's death; and the company that produced the substandard
safe used in the trick that led to its failure. Dray, however, decides not to
turn him in. Dray takes a lock and a key that Dylan magically produces as he
proclaims "One more secret to lock away." After Dray locks the lock
on a chain fence with all of the locks that have been locked there over the
years, she throws the key into the Seine.
After the beginning of the credits roll in, it is seen
that the Four Horsemen have driven to a wasteland in the middle of a desert.
All of them enter and find a secret room containing boxes full of their new
magic equipment. They turn to Merrit and ask him for the card to open the boxes
and he replies that he seems to have forgotten where he left them?
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