Mr Morgan Freeman has worked hard all his life and made a fortune by debunking corrupted , stupid magicians , but it made some eff-ing , poor , bratty , racism magician ( mark buffalo ) jealous at him , so he planned to imprison that man for the rest of his life ( maybe only 1 or 2 more years in Mr Morgan Freeman's case because he is very old now , so the joke is on mark buffalo , lol ) .
Safes are for rich people to store their money in , not for some poor people who are desperate and stupid enough to try to crack it , from the inside , while being handcuffed , and underwater . But safes can also be used as cheap and sturdy coffins for some stupid fathers , lol .
So the only one to blame is the father for being stupid and for passing his stupid genes to his eff-ing son .

He was certainly no Paul Daniels.

I do like the film but surely Mark Ruffalo's father was just a bad magician. Surely he would have trained before hand before attempting the trick and used the same safe in training as on the day of the actual trick? Also, was Morgans Freeman character actually proven right when he died during the trick?

Wow, great reply! Sometimes you never know what your going to get here.

Freeman's character debunks all the magicians tricks. Ruffalo's dad was Lionel Shrike which they talked about in the movie. After Freeman's character released his videos showing people how magicians do their tricks, no one would pay to see it anymore and so Lionel Shrike was basically out of a career. In an attempt to get back in the spotlight, Shrike attempted an escape attempt that failed and killed him. His father was also insured by Treschler insurance who basically screwed Ruffalo's character's family and left them with nothing after his dad died (which was the vendetta against him). Basically Ruffalo's blames freeman for ultimately causing his dad's death.