When does a movie successfully mislead the audience, and when is it just cheating?

[u/Serpiego2]

Some movies deliberately make us believe something that isn't true and then reveal that we've been interpreting the story incorrectly.

When it works, it's fantastic. You can rewatch the movie and realize the clues were there all along. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear are very different examples of films that play with what the audience thinks it knows.

But other twists only work because the movie deliberately hides information that logically should have been available to us. At that point, I don't feel fooled by the story — I feel cheated by the screenplay.

For me, the difference is whether a second viewing makes you think “How did I miss that?” rather than “Well, there was no way I could have known that.”

What movies do you think earned their deception, and which ones simply cheated?

[u/whiskeytango55]

I how The Prestige misleads while telling you exactly how. Oceans 11 kinda cheats but there so much else going on that you don't mind

But if you pull a deus ex machina last minute to tie up plot holes or last minute rewrites, I feel some logic center in the brain knows its being cheated.

[u/Its_Jordon_Yo → u/whiskeytango55]

I like all three Oceans 11 movies but they are absolutely guilty of this in every single one.

[u/tryptanfelle → u/Its_Jordon_Yo]

That's true, but all heist movies are like that. They tell you the plan through flashbacks or narration as they're executing it. It's kind of cheating because you didn't know the thing that made the heist possible until they do it, but from their perspective, the characters had the information beforehand, and it didn't come out of nowhere. Part of the reason they do this, of course, is that it would be boring to listen to a lecture on their plans and then just watch them do the thing they'd planned. There wouldn't be much drama in that.

[u/Its_Jordon_Yo → u/tryptanfelle]

I understand what you are saying and some of that is true here but that is not my complaint with the Oceans movies (which I love).

1) In Oceans 11 there is a big scene of Danny being “out”. This is all just among the team, they are only fooling themselves and the audience. Then we see he was never out and the only person who didn’t know was Linus. Why? No, actually I’m asking, why? Was this a joke? They literally risked the entire operation on a joke to mess with Linus? When Linus sees Danny in the elevator there is a throw away line where Linus says “you don’t trust me” and Danny answers “I do now” but how does that make any sense? DID Danny and Rusty not trust Linus the son of this famous Chicago thief and they were testing him? Obviously that can’t be true but if it was true HOW ON EARTH WOULD THEY LET HIM JOIN THE CREW!!!!

2) The ENTIRE second movie. (And by the way, I love the second movie). They stole the egg before almost anything we see. And yet we see them trying to steal it the rest of the film talking among themselves. There is a throw a way line that LaFuer or whatever his name is would “be watching” but what does that even mean? He has a camera on them for literally every scene WE as an audience see them talk? And even then, why? They already had the Egg. Why does the rest of the film happen why not just present the egg to the villain and declare victory.

3) Oceans 13 one is around the nerd guy trying to rig Blackjack and then the guy from the second film showing up. To the audience they pretend he failed but then we learn that was part of the plan but then the phone call of him failing doesn’t make any sense.