After a run of sell-out shows, they’re booked for one night only at the MGM Grand in Vegas.

Part of their act involves transporting a member of the audience to a French bank vault, where they get away with 30 million Euros, which are then showered on the gasping audience.

Everyone assumes it’s all just razzle-dazzle until it’s revealed that the money really is missing, and it’s up to prickly FBI agent Mark Ruffalo and his gang of debunkers (including Mélanie Laurent) to get to the bottom of this costly bit of hocus pocus.

Director Louis Leterrier certainly knows how to make a film zoom – he’s the man responsible for the first two Transporter flicks, after all – and for its first half, Now You See Me does exactly that.

However, there are so many twists, turns and ‘shocking reveals’ that we’re soon bogged down by a top-heavy narrative that then collapses with a final reversal that’s only stunning in its sheer ridiculousness.

Of course, there’s more than a touch of absurdity in the idea of a movie about magicians, especially one that lays on the showmanship so thick.

Sleight-of-hand and vanishing acts impress in the flesh, but are a bit useless in a medium where the ‘magic’ is usually achieved via editing and CGI.

Still, for a good stretch Now You See Me is engaging and eye-popping and the cast are clearly having a ball, even if our ‘heroes’ aren’t as lovably roguish as, say, Danny Ocean’s mob (Eisenberg unleashes all his Social Network arrogance, only in less fascinating fashion).

But if it’s a choice between this and paying to watch your local hypnotist, go with this. At least you’ll keep your trousers on in public.

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Putting a face on the “angels of death” whose grim duty it is to notify the loved ones of soldiers lost in action, Oren Moverman’s film is a hard-hitting watch that nonetheless mines a rich vein of dark humour from a job where there are few good days at the office.

For all its tragedy, The Messenger is essentially a buddy movie that sees Foster’s wounded war hero and Harrelson’s seasoned blowhard form an unlikely bond. “It could be worse,” says Woody’s Captain Stone after another painful house call. “It could be Christmas!”

Where he insists on things going by the book, though, Foster’s Staff Sergeant Montgomery opts for a more empathic approach, not least when he becomes romantically involved with a young widow (Samantha Morton) after informing her of her husband’s death.“Fuck procedure – they’re human beings!” yells Montgomery at one point.

But he and Stone are human too and can’t help but be affected by the grief they witness and inadvertently cause. Small wonder Montgomery seeks to silence his demons with head-banging rock, or that Woody’s recovering alkie falls off the wagon.

Moverman tackles the emotive material with restraint while drawing excellent performances from his well-matched leads.

If there’s an off-note here, it’s sounded by Steve Buscemi as a bereaved father who turns on Montgomery and Stone. Somehow, this doesn’t seem the place for ‘scene-stealing’.

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