DF is one of my all time favorites. Another quirky Scots film I like to recommend is Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself. Seriously. It's as sweet as Dear Frankie and the two in a double bill will make you want to hug and squeeze your near and dear.

But why would Dignam watch from out of frame and let everyone get shot at the abandoned building? Everything could have been cleaned up more tidily from there. And I also remember that I wondered what Delahunt was about to tell Costigan before he shuffled the mortal coil.

Pretty sure Delahunt told him, right? Along the lines of, do you know why I didn't tell anyone that you were at the correct address?

(As for the other questions, I don't remember anyone's names anymore, but I assume that everyone we suspect of being a rat was one, that we were supposed to take from it that both sides were heavily infiltrated.)

Did anybody see The Prestige ? I liked it. And I think it doesn't fall into the same trap of "realistic" magic that The Illusionist did, but, maybe kinda sorta fell into a different trap, which may or may not actually be a trap. Worth talking about, anyway.

Delahunt did say that, which lent credance to the later news report and then seriously confused me when Costello said something to the effect that it wasn't true, just what the cops wanted them to think.

That was the moment that led me to bon bon's second point that everyone was crooked and had a double life.

I think Costello's comment was persuasive but ultimately not true-- that Delahunt was not a mole-- and was in the movie to keep the heat on Costigan. Otherwise the conversation between Delahunt and Costigan makes no sense.

Did anybody see The Prestige ? I liked it. And I think it doesn't fall into the same trap of "realistic" magic that The Illusionist did, but, maybe kinda sorta fell into a different trap, which may or may not actually be a trap. Worth talking about, anyway.

I haven't seen The Illusionist, but discussing The Prestige will require prodigious amounts of whitefont. Hee. I was sort of whelmed at first, but the more I've discussed it with friends, the more I like it. It's so subtly complex.

That is what I thought...that Costello was a bit deluded about the sanctity of his inner circle .

Ironic in the extreme considering he was playing both ends of the field .

As for ita's comment on Dignan... I can't imagine why he would allow the warehouse shootings to happen if he could have stopped them. Then again, perhaps he didn't care beyond his devotion to the Martin Sheen character. I confess, I'm totally making that up...because I want to have faith in at least one character and because there is no other excuse. Then again, perhaps, like The Bad Lieutenant there simply ARE no good cops in that universe.

P-C, I wanted to love The Prestige so much that I purposely skipped The Illusionist to preserve my magician movie clean slate before seeing it.

I think the best part of it was the conversation it inspired with my compatriots about morality and responsibility. (That and David Bowie and Ricky Jay!) Plus, the conversations I overheard being had by people I would not, on a surface level, have expected.

In retrospect, after saying I was impressed by seeing the darker side of Hugh Jackman. His persona seems to have been used as a device and I can't decide how I feel about it. He's soooo well-loved as an actor and, even as Woverine, has a heart of gold. In this case, his proper behavior and good looks seemed to be manipulated to make the character's cold-blooded nature seem all the more chilling. I have to say, it didn't really work on me.

It's so subtly complex.

I would have said it was frankly complex. Did any of you guess the secret(s) before the reveal? I was pleased to notice that I only was really sure about one of them.

The final twist, that the machine really makes a double, is something that my fellow viewer had a lot of trouble with but which went down easily for me. I suspect it's a matter of "science fiction goggles" -- I'm primed to be comfortable with the tentativeness of universe-rules, whereas he assumed it was real-world right up until the moment it was proved not to be.

Jackman gives good ugly, when he wants to. His body work with the out-of-work actor was a lot of fun to watch. Bale, OTOH, looks like a smoking volcano to me. Every time I saw his face, I was like, any minute now, this hale young man will have a stroke and die.