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/tv/ had no answers, so I come to /x/

There was this movie I saw over 10 years ago on TV, and for the life of me I can't find it again. I'm not trying to write a haunted-show pasta, I'm legitimately looking for people who have seen the movie or at least know what I'm referring to.

It's about a guy, in the 80s or 90s, who wants to become a magician. He goes to this world famous magician who just staged his own death (in more ways than one) and is now planning on lying low for the rest of his life. He refuses to teach the man, and insists that he's only an illusionist, because "magicians do it for real." Beyond that I just remember that at the end they were in some abandoned-looking town in a desert somewhere and there were these magicians hanging out there doing dark arts shit. I think they kidnapped someone or something so they were there to rescue them. The villain's magic is more third-eye/true mind type magic vs. your usual fire and lightning type of Hollywood wizards, and it was pretty cash. He told the protagonist he was going to show him the ugly truth of humanity and hit him with some kind of mind-bolt or something that made everyone the protag saw start like warping inside out and it was real freaky.

Beyond that I only remember the pro-magician who the protagonist goes to, to learn magic, may have looked like a stern Gene Wilder. But, no more than I remember about the film he could've just been blond, or had curly hair. No such film shows on Wilder's IMDB so I doubt it was him.