Sleight

Sleight (2017) is J.D. Dillard's sci-fi thriller, and you can watch it online on iFILM. His debut blends street magic, a story about scraping by, and a quiet superhero origin with no cape in sight.

Bo (Jacob Latimore) is a gifted young magician working the corners of Los Angeles. After his mother dies, he is the only one left to raise his little sister Tina (Storm Reid), so he deals drugs at parties to keep the rent paid. When he crosses his supplier, Tina is taken. The only way to get her back runs through his signature trick, which turns out to be no trick at all: Bo has surgically embedded a magnet in his arm and rigged an electromagnetic device, and the "magic" is real.

Made on a tight budget, the film rides on its premise and on Latimore, and critics warmed to it for putting a fresh, grounded spin on the origin-story formula. If you are burned out on big-studio spectacle and want something small and human-scaled, this fits. Stream Sleight (2017) online on iFILM.