The Ending Of Sleight Explained

The 2016 sci-fi movie "Sleight" was a bit of a wonderful surprise from director J.D. Dillard. The movie felt like a well-acted drama that pulled from the slick magic concepts found in "Now You See Me" yet also wouldn't have felt out of place as a type of superhero origin piece from Marvel or DC.

The movie centered on protagonist Bo Wolfe (Jacob Latimore), who must take care of his younger sister after their parents' death. By day, Bo performs as a street magician in Los Angeles, and he accomplishes this thanks to an electromagnet he's built into his arm. With the special device, Bo can manipulate anything that's metal. The device also plays a role when Bo later has to save himself and his sibling, as his night job as a drug dealer ultimately places the two in danger thanks to the money he owes to his supplier Angelo (Dulé Hill).

"Sleight" might have started off as a movie that depicted a young genius who is dealt the roughest hand from life and is struggling in his own unique way to survive day by day. But by the film's conclusion, Bo looked like a proper hero who has only just begun to grasp the potential of his own power. Here's what went down in "Sleight"'s ending and what it could mean.

The final scene of "Sleight" implies Bo's powers aren't just a standard science trick. During the movie's final arc, Bo confronts Angelo and his men with way more power thanks to a feedback oscillator. The flip side is that after dealing with them, the electromagnet device overheats, and his arm burns. Yet the final scene tells us that this isn't the end to his powers but maybe just the beginning. When his girlfriend walks in on him while he's working on a new trick in the bathroom, the lights in the house flicker, and we see her surprised face as she looks at him. Bo's final trick in the film isn't shown to us, and as frustrating as that might be, it makes sense as that isn't the focus.

The focus of Bo's final trick is to tell us that by the film's end, Bo has only just tapped into his full potential. This could mean that maybe Bo vastly fixed and improved the device in his arm to expand its power. Or maybe he actually has real superpowers that are finally fully manifesting. In any case, the last scene sets us up to believe that there is more to Bo's powers than we initially thought. This goes in hand with when Director J.D. Dillard also told The Verge that "Sleight"'s ending is meant to tell the audience there's definitely a grander story to tell. Hopefully, if there is a sequel to "Sleight" we'll learn the official truth to Bo's powers and just what his last trick was.