A young boy discovers a hidden talent for magic and works tirelessly to master it. As his powers grow, they become so strong that even he struggles to control them, leaving everyone in awe… and fear of what he might do next.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

After the death of his mother, a boy named Bo gets a voicemail from his teacher, Mr.Granger, who says he understands how his student must be feeling. He adds that he has been in such a situation before, and he wishes he had someone to tell him not to let his present actions disrupt his future. He also mentions that the scholarship Bo just received proves that he’s one in a million, and he should never forget that.

As he says that Bo can call him if he needs anything or wants to talk, the voicemail ends. The call prompt then asks Bo if he wants to save or delete the message. Interestingly, Bo chooses to delete it, and Mr.Granger’s message gets deleted immediately.

A year later, Bo is now doing some really impressive magic tricks on the streets to make some money. After impressing a group of people, he meets a girl named Holly and shows her a trick in which he makes a ring float in the air. Holly is highly impressed by this, but as she asks how he did it, he doesn’t say anything.

Shortly after, Bo goes to meet his little sister, Tina, while she’s reading a book. As Bo sees the book she’s reading, he nearly spoils the ending for her, but Tina stops him just in time. Bo then apologizes for this, and they head home together.

When they get there, Bo heads to the bathroom, and after staring at the mirror for a while, he decides to clean the wound on his arm. It then turns out that Bo has built an electromagnet into his arm, and it’s why he can do several impressive tricks, like the one he showed Holly. Unfortunately, this amazing invention leaves parts of his arm wounded after a long day, and that’s why he always cleans it regularly, so it doesn’t get infected.

After he’s done, Bo lifts two batteries in the air and drops them into the waste bin. Shortly after, while Bo is cooking dinner for Tina, he sees his neighbor, Georgi, walking near his window, so he goes outside to meet her. He then asks if she’s around for the night because he needs someone to watch Tina while he heads out for work.

Georgi says she’ll do it, and Bo thanks her for this. Much later, he leaves home and heads to a club run by a lady named Luna. As he gets there, he greets Luna’s colleagues before going into her office to drop off the supply of drugs for her club.

After Bo supplies the drugs, Tina thanks him, and he heads out of her office. As he’s about to leave the club, Luna’s colleagues ask if Bo won’t show them a trick before he heads out. Surprisingly, it turns out that Bo already took their phone and wallet when he greeted them earlier, and as he returns the items to them, they look shocked and wonder how he could’ve even done it.

Shortly after, Bo heads to the streets and starts selling the drugs to some of his regular customers. Things go on smoothly for a while, but the cops soon show up at one of the spots for his deals. As his customer sees them, he runs away, but Bo stays back and obeys the officers when they tell him to raise his hands.

Even though he still has the drugs on him, one of the cops searches him thoroughly, but he doesn’t see it. Bo then mentions that he has nothing on him, and that the person who ran away likely did that because he was naturally scared of the cops. Since there doesn’t seem to be anything on him, the cops let Bo leave, and he walks away. When he gets home, he sees Tina already sleeping, so he just heads to his room. The next morning, Bo wakes up and hears the smoke alarm detector ringing in the kitchen.

As he runs outside, he sees Tina just about to pour water into a pan with hot oil. He immediately stops and scolds her for trying something really dangerous, but she says she didn’t know what else to do. She adds that she only wanted to make breakfast for him.

As she apologizes, Bo says he understands, and he also promises to teach her how to cook. Shortly after, Bo heads to his room to count all the money he made the previous day. In his bag, he finds a note with Holly’s number and realizes that she likely dropped it there for him. Bo looks happy about this, and he decides to text her.

Much later, he heads over to see his supplier, Angelo, who looks really happy to see him. He commends Bo for doing a good job so far and says he might even take over the business from him one day. He then asks Bo if he has a girlfriend, and he says he doesn’t.

However, he remembers that he now has a date with Holly, so he tells Angelo about it. Angelo looks happy for him, and he offers to pay for their first date. Even though Bo initially refuses to take the money, Angelo insists and says he’s just helping. Bo thanks him for this, and Angelo asks if he can do him a favor.

As Bo asks what it is, Angelo tells him to find the name of the rival drug dealer in one of Bo’s main selling points. Bo says he’ll do that, and Angelo lets him leave. Later that night, Bo goes to a club to get the information Angelo needs. After seeing someone buy drugs from a strange guy, Bo goes to meet him to ask if he can also get some. The man says he’s not selling to Bo, and he even nearly beats him when he keeps asking for drugs.

The man eventually walks away, but it turns out that Bo has already stolen his phone. After checking it, he finds out that the name of the rival dealer is Maurice, so he calls Angelo immediately. Angelo thanks him for this, and Bo heads home. The next day, Bo sets up a date with Holly, and when she arrives, he looks really happy to see her. Bo says sorry for not getting the chance to talk to her well last time, and she says it’s why she gave him her number.

She then mentions that she actually works at a pastry shop around where he saw her the other day. She adds that she only works there a couple of days every week because she also goes to the community college. As she then checks through the menu, Holly mentions that she hasn’t seen a cute magician before, and Bo looks pleased to hear this.

After a while, Holly talks about her family, and how her dad left her mom because she had issues. She also mentions that she still stays with her mom, though her dad doesn’t stay too far away from them. Holly then asks Bo about himself, and he says he has already lost both of his parents, with his mom just dying last year.

He adds that he’s now alone with Tina, but he’s working toward making enough money to take her to a better neighborhood so that she can be surrounded by better people. Just as he continues talking, his phone starts ringing, and even though he doesn’t want to interrupt his date, Holly says he can answer it. After he leaves the table, it turns out to be a call from Angelo, who wants Bo to come to his place immediately.

Bo looks disappointed because he’s going to have to end his date abruptly, but Holly takes it quite well and says she hopes they’ll do it again some other time. Just then, Bo heads to Angelo’s house and is handed a gun by one of Angelo’s men. Bo doesn’t understand what’s going on, but as Angelo shows up, he says they need to leave.

Bo asks where they’re going, and Angelo says he has already found out where Maurice lives, and he wants to teach him a lesson. Bo looks scared because he didn’t sign up for this, but he doesn’t say anything. After they get to Maurice’s house, Angelo and his boys see him sitting alone in his garage.

Angelo then tells Bo and the others to check around to see if there’s anyone else. As Bo walks around, someone tries to attack him, and the gun slips from his hand. Before anything happens, one of Angelo’s men saves him, and Bo looks relieved. As Angelo then sits at a table with Maurice and his boys, he says he can’t believe they’d just come into his hood and start dealing drugs without introducing themselves to him. Maurice says he doesn’t care who Angelo is, but the gangster laughs it off as a joke.

He then mentions that he doesn’t like the fact that they’re comparing their drugs to his by telling people that their stuff is cheaper. One of Maurice’s boys insults Angelo and throws some of the casino chips on the table at him. Angelo gets pissed, and he beats him up. He then tells Maurice that he’d prefer for them to be coworkers instead of rivals. He adds that Maurice has to choose between leaving the city or working with him to get a certain percentage.

Maurice doesn’t respond to this, and Angelo leaves with his boys. On their way home, Angelo’s boys joke about how Bo let his gun slip, and even though he doesn’t find it funny, he pretends to laugh about it. When Bo gets home, he tells Georgi everything that happened and says he didn’t sign up to be a drug dealer who would be involved in dangerous activities.

Georgi asks if something like that has happened before, but Bo says it hasn’t. He adds that it’s why he liked Angelo because he didn’t seem like the type of guy who enjoyed beating up people. He also says he wouldn’t have worked for Angelo if he knew things would eventually get rough.

As he says he needs to find a way to get out, Georgi just looks at him because she doesn’t know what to say. The next day, Bo impresses some tourists with his magic tricks. While he’s then packing Angelo’s drugs for sale, Bo gets a call from Holly, who asks if they can meet later that night.

Bo says he’s still busy, but that he can cook dinner for her the next day. Holly agrees to this, and she ends the call when she gets a customer. The next day, Bo does a magic trick just outside where Holly works, and she looks happy to see him. After she closes, Bo takes Holly home to have dinner with Georgi and Tina. While they’re eating, Georgi asks where they met, and Holly says she saw Bo performing outside her workplace.

Tina seems to like Holly, and she asks if she’s already Bo’s girlfriend. Holly smiles at her and says that they only just met. Shortly after, Georgi and Bo leave the table, and she tells him that Holly seems like a nice girl. Just then, someone rings the doorbell, and as Bo checks who it is, he sees that it’s Angelo. Bo is shocked by this, but Angelo enters the house and says hello to the ladies.

Tina introduces herself as Bo’s sister and says that Holly is like his girlfriend. Angelo says they look fine, but he mentions that he needs to talk to Bo for a minute. As they head outside, Angelo tells Bo that Maurice didn’t heed his warning, and he’s still selling his drugs.

He says he only came to get Bo because Maurice is partying at a nearby club, and they need to teach him another lesson. Bo doesn’t look happy about this, but he goes inside the house and apologizes to Holly for abruptly ending their dinner date again. He also asks if Georgi can help watch Tina because he has to leave for work with Angelo.

Georgi says she can, but Holly offers to stay too. Bo says he doesn’t want to bother her, but Holly mentions that it’s not a problem for her. Shortly after, Bo joins Angelo and his men in kidnapping Maurice just as he’s leaving the club. They then take him to Angelo’s house, and there, Angelo tells Maurice about how pissed he is. He then asks if he’s left or right-handed.

Maurice doesn’t understand this, but he eventually mentions that he’s left-handed. Angelo then picks up a knife and says he’ll teach Maurice a lesson for not obeying his instructions. As Angelo’s men hold down Maurice, he gives the knife to Bo and tells him to cut Maurice’s left hand.

Bo is shocked by this, and as he says he can’t do it, Angelo encourages him and says that if they don’t do anything, Maurice will keep playing them around, and he won’t know how serious they are. Bo still looks scared, but Angelo says it’s either he cuts Maurice’s left hand, or he’ll lose his. Maurice begs Bo not to do this, and even though he hesitates for a while, he eventually gets it done.

Angelo then tells Maurice that if he ever sells his drugs again, he’ll be killed. Shortly after, Angelo takes Bo home and tells him that there’ll be more customers with Maurice now out of the picture. He then asks if Bo can handle an extra kilogram of the product. Bo says he can, and Angelo gives him the product while saying he’ll now be in control of a lot of money. As Bo gets out of the car, Angelo says he’s having a party at his house during the weekend.

He adds that Bo can come with Holly if he wants. Bo says he’ll think about it, and he heads into the house. He then hides the drugs before going to wake Holly up on the couch so she can sleep properly on his bed. The next morning, Bo wakes up and sees a note from Holly saying she has already left because she has a class to attend. Later that day, after Bo returns from the supermarket, Tina asks if he wants to bake a cake, and he asks why she thinks so.

She then mentions that he bought an extra box of baking soda, but Bo says it’s not what she thinks. Shortly after, Bo invites Georgi to the house and shows her how he repackaged Angelo’s drugs to get an extra kilogram worth of the product by adding baking soda to it. Georgi thinks it’s too dangerous, but Bo says he believes he’ll be able to make enough money from it to buy his way out of Angelo’s crew.

Georgi asks if Angelo will let him leave, but Bo says he doesn’t know, and that he’s just hoping he’ll be allowed to leave. Georgi still thinks he shouldn’t sell the mixed product, but Bo says it’s already done. Shortly after, he leaves the house and sells the drugs to his regular customers. As he’s done for the night, he gets a call from Holly, who asks if she can come to his place because her mom just hurt her. Bo says she can, and after she arrives, Holly explains that her mom always hits her whenever she’s drunk.

Bo says she doesn’t deserve to be treated badly, and that she can stay at his house for as long as she wants. The next morning, Holly wakes up and sees the electromagnet in Bo’s arm. She asks him about it, and he says it’s part of an effect. Holly says it looks infected, but Bo says it’s not as bad as she thinks.

She still sounds worried and asks why he would do something like that to himself for a magic trick. Bo then tells her a story about the first time he saw a magic trick performed by an Italian magician when he was still a little kid. Bo says that the magician performed a trick in which he pressed a pocket knife in the middle of his palm, and it went through to the other side without any sign of injury or blood.

Bo was so intrigued by this, and he asked the magician how he did it. Unfortunately, the magician said he could only share his tricks with other magicians, and Bo was left disappointed. A year ago, Bo met the magician again and showed him some tricks.

The magician then confessed that the trick Bo saw when he was a kid was real. It turns out that the magician had already stabbed a clean hole through his hand, and whenever he performed, he just covered it with latex so that no one would notice. Bo says it was quite obvious, but that no one would expect anyone to go to such lengths for a magic trick.

Holly doesn’t understand this because there are tricks that can be done without hurting himself, but Bo says anyone can do that. He adds that doing something no one else can do is what makes someone a true magician. Even though Holly still doesn’t believe it’s necessary, she doesn’t say anything.

The next day, Bo heads out to make some money by doing some magic tricks for tourists in the area. Later that night, while he’s watching a movie with Holly and Tina, Bo gets a call from Angelo telling him to come to his house immediately. As he gets there, he sees that Angelo is having a party, and some of his men greet Bo quite well.

After a while, Angelo calls Bo to his office, and when he gets there, he gets punched and knocked down to the floor. Angelo then accuses him of cutting his drugs, and even though Bo denies it at first, he eventually confesses. Angelo gets really pissed and brings out his gun.

Bo begs Angelo not to kill him, and he also promises to refund the money for the drugs. Instead of the fifteen thousand dollars he’s supposed to pay for the drugs, Angelo tells Bo to pay forty-five thousand dollars. He also tells Bo that if he doesn’t get the money in a week, he’ll be killed.

Bo immediately leaves the house, and as he gets home, he sneaks into the bathroom to check the bruise on his face. As he looks worried because Tina will see it, Holly enters the bathroom, but he quickly tells her to close the door so that his sister won’t see his face. Holly notices that he’s scared, but she calms him down and asks what happened.

After he narrates everything to her, he says he’ll understand if she wants to leave him, but she says she won’t do that. As he then sounds scared because he only has five thousand dollars saved, Holly tells him to sell off some of his things and continue to do magic tricks to make money. She says she’ll also see what she can find because if Angelo is as dangerous as Bo has described him, then he won’t like to hear any stories in a week.

For the next few days, Bo starts doing magic tricks in different places, and he also makes a lot of money. After selling off some of his things, Bo eventually gets a little over thirty-five thousand dollars. Holly also gives him the nine hundred dollars she had saved for her school application. Bo says he can’t take it from her, but she insists that she wants him to have it. Bo thanks her for this, but with one more day to go before his deadline lapses, he starts thinking of how to get nine thousand dollars before Angelo comes for him.

The next day, Bo heads to a bank to see if he can get a loan, but his application is rejected. As he returns to his car, he angrily hits the steering wheel, and Tina asks if something bad is going to happen to them. Bo says there’s nothing to worry about, but Tina asks why he’s scared. Bo says that being an adult is difficult sometimes, and that she doesn’t need to worry about it. As she says she hopes it will be over soon, Bo sees her crying, and he looks sad.

He then takes her to an arcade gaming centre where he manipulates the machines to help her win so she can be happy. Later that night, Bo packages some drugs and takes them to Luna’s bar. When he gets there, she opens her safe in front of him, and he watches her closely to get the code because she has a lot of money inside.

After she pays him for the drugs, they leave her office together, but Bo steals her key and says he needs to use the restroom. Following this, he uses his electromagnet trick to move the security camera away from the entrance. He then unlocks the office and heads in to open the safe.

Even though he doesn’t get the code at first, he eventually unlocks the safe and takes all the money inside. Before he leaves, one of Luna’s men enters the office to pick up something, so Bo finds a place to hide. After a while, the man leaves the office, and Bo also heads out sneakily.

As he then gets to the bar, he slips Luna’s key back into her pocket, and this makes him feel good because he has now gotten the rest of the money, he owes Angelo without getting caught. Unfortunately, Maurice and his boys are at the club, and as they see Bo, they run after him. Bo also runs out of the club, but they eventually catch him.

As they check his bag, they see the money inside and knock him out. When Bo wakes up, he realizes that he has been cuffed inside the trunk of a car. After he uses his electromagnet trick to unlock the cuffs, he leaves the trunk of the car and runs away from the garage where Maurice and his men are planning to kill him. Shortly after, he heads home and starts wandering about because he doesn’t know what else to do. Later that night, Angelo and his men come to Bo’s house, and they trash the whole place when they don’t see him.

It turns out that Bo is in Georgi’s house, and as Angelo calls him, he asks for more time to get the money. Angelo doesn’t like this, and he says that Bo is now owing him an extra five thousand dollars. The next morning, Tina asks why she can’t enter the house, but Bo tells her not to worry about it.

He also tells her that he’d be coming later to her school to pick her up. After Bo enters the house, he sees the whole place scattered and tells Holly that he doesn’t know what else to do. As he says he was almost killed, Holly tells Bo that he needs to run away from Los Angeles with Tina. She adds that she’ll also leave after she’s through with her current semester.

Bo asks why she wants to leave, and she says she has thought about what he said the other day, and she believes she deserves to be treated better than her mom currently does. Later that day, Bo heads out to pick up Tina from school. Unfortunately, he’s told that her uncle has already picked her up, and as Tina calls him, Bo hears Angelo’s voice and realizes that his sister has been kidnapped.

Angelo then tells Bo that if he wants his sister back, he needs to pay up what he owes. Bo looks disappointed because he didn’t want to bring Tina into his mess. He then heads home, and while looking around, he sees an old picture he took with Mr.Granger. Following this, he heads to Mr.Granger’s house and waits for his old teacher to return home from work. As Mr.Granger sees Bo, he looks surprised, but he still invites him inside.

There, Bo talks about how things haven’t been easy, and Mr.Granger asks how he can help. Bo then asks if he remembers his old science project in which he put an electromagnet inside a shoebox. Mr.Granger says he does, and Bo shows him his arm.

Mr.Granger is shocked, and he says it’s a very dangerous thing to do, but Bo doesn’t seem to care. Mr.Granger also seems quite intrigued by the invention, and as he asks how he can help, Bo says he’s trying to find a way to produce more output from the device. Mr.Granger then suggests using some batteries and a feedback oscillator to do that.

After he helps Bo with it, he tests it outside and is surprisingly now able to move himself toward a car using the device’s output. Mr.Granger realizes that Bo isn’t going to use the device for a trick, but he doesn’t say anything. After a while, Bo tells Mr.Granger that he didn’t really mean to reject the scholarship last year, and the teacher says he understands.

As Bo leaves, Mr.Granger also tells him to be careful. A few minutes later, Bo takes Holly to Angelo’s house and tells her to call the cops if he doesn’t come out early enough. Just then, he walks into the house, and as Angelo’s men try to attack him, he uses his electromagnet trick to injure them.

While the men are shocked by what he can do, Bo calls out Angelo, and when he finally shows up, he sounds pissed to see Bo in his house. Bo then asks for his sister, but Angelo says he won’t let her go unless he gets his money. He also says it’s high time he taught Bo a lesson because he really invested in him until he went behind his back to cut his drugs.

As he shoots Bo, Angelo is shocked to see the bullet floating just in front of him. Bo then controls one of the bullets and places it in the middle of Angelo’s head to threaten him. Angelo looks really scared, and as Bo asks where Tina is, he says that she’s with his aunt at a particular address.

Following this, Bo frees Angelo and gives him the fifteen thousand dollars he actually owes him. After he leaves, he quickly goes to rescue Tina. When they enter the car, Bo starts crying because he can’t believe everything he has gone through. Tina feels sad about this, and she hugs him, after which Holly does the same. A while later, Bo moves to San Diego with Tina and Holly.

He also starts doing magic tricks again in public. After he’s done, Holly meets him at his spot, and they head home together. When he gets there, Holly talks about how her class went, and she asks about his day. He then says that he has been trying to work on a new trick. Holly asks when he’ll show it to her, and he says he’s going to do that when it’s ready.

Later that night, Holly wakes up and notices that Bo is no longer on the bed. She also sees the lights in the house blinking, and as she walks out of the room, she realizes that Bo is trying out his new trick inside another room. As she opens the door, she sees what he’s doing, and this leaves her intrigued.

Bo’s journey is a typical example of how one single mistake could derail someone’s life. Even though Bo got a scholarship that could’ve changed his life, his mom’s death made him lose interest in school, and he ended up dealing drugs for a dangerous person like Angelo. While he eventually found a way out and left the city to start a new life, his previous experience as a drug dealer is surely a phase of his life he wouldn’t want to go back to.

Sometimes, life’s challenges can push us toward making serious mistakes, but it’s important to know that it’s never too late to make a change and seek a better path.

Sleight 2016.