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Shelf Beauties |
Smokin' Aces Smokin’ Aces could
have been
a super cool Martin Scorsese movie, but in the hands of writer/director
Joe
Carnahan, it just stinks. Jeremy Piven stars as Buddy
“Aces” Now, FBI agents Donald
Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) are on
their way to
Israel’s secret hideout in the high roller’s suite
at a Lake Tahoe casino and
hotel, while Buddy’s lawyer hammers out the final plea
bargain arrangement, so
he can enter the FBI Witness Protection Program.
However, a $1 million price is on Buddy’s
head, and every high paid mercenary and assassin is heading to Tahoe to
collect. Will any of the assassins be
successful? Will
Buddy’s testimony
destroy the mob? Smokin’ Aces has a
great
deal of potential, but it feels like Carnahan is stuffing in everything
he ever
learned about making and writing a movie, which weighs down film to the
point
where the audience has to wonder why they have stuck around this long. Like this week’s
Catch and Release, the movie
has too many characters, too many subplots (most of which just
don’t matter), as
well as complication for complication’s sake instead of using
it to make the
movie more interesting and full of tension.
Most of all, Carnahan is filling out a sparse script
with junk. Because of al of this, the
tone of Smokin’ Aces is all over the place.
Worse than all of that, what
could be a good, hardboiled, Scorsese-type gritty movie about the
underworld
with all sorts of twists and turns that make you wonder who can be
trusted, who
is dangerous enough to complete the job and more, devolves into a
massive orgy
of pointless violence, with an absurd ending.
It’s as if Carnahan gives up as the
silliness and over-the-top feel of
the film ruins any chance of the audience taking it serious. Some of the actors like
Reynolds, Liotta, and Piven do a good job with second rate material,
but they
can’t save a movie that goes in the wrong direction too
often. 1 Waffle
(Out Of 4)
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
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