“Stealing Magic” opens where magic lives: the Magic Castle in Hollywood, where magician Andi Gladwin runs through a classic card trick with the ease of someone who has spent 30 years perfecting it. He is the co-founder of Vanishing Inc., one of the world’s largest magic retailers, and has built his life around spreading his love of the art form to fellow magic lovers. It’s an effective opening that establishes the importance of magic to those who perform it and the stakes when it’s threatened.The threat here is Erdnase Magic Store, an illicit website selling pirated copies of Vanishing Inc.’s content. Everything from tutorials, books, and downloaded tricks have been stolen, thousands of products on what amounts to be a copy of Gladwin’s own stock, but marketed for half the price. What follows is a true-crime caper in which Gladwin and his colleagues swap card tricks for criminal investigation, scanning purchase histories, setting traps, working with hackers, and eventually, traveling around Europe to track down who might be running the operation. At times, it feels like a globetrotting James Bond mission, and director Matthew Testa leans into that with enthusiasm.CONTINUE READING
