"Smokin' Aces" is a heist movie with a twist. Well, several twists actually. It has a mob contract as the payoff, comedians cast as deadly killers, a twist ending, and, most unfortunately, so much going on at once that very little ever actually happens.
The premise: Buddy "Aces" Israel, played by Jeremy Piven ("Entourage"), is a snitch that the mob wants dead. Seven assassins are trying to help the mob and FBI officers Carruthers and Messner (Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds) are trying to stop them.
The plot seems fairly simple, but it actually involves around a dozen characters and at least nine story lines. While it is never particularly difficult to follow each of the story lines, it does take awhile for anything to be accomplished.
Each story line has to be introduced, find out about the bounty, set a plan in motion, and get to Israel. This means that a majority of this movie is mostly about waiting — lots of waiting. By the time anything gets around to happening, it is too little, too late.
The different story lines overlap very rarely, and it seems that writer and director Joe Carnahan is concerned about getting the most face time for each member of the ensemble cast — including everyone from Wayne Newton to Jason Bateman — without any regard to pacing. If more of the story lines had come together by the end, this would have been acceptable. As it stands, however, cohesiveness was traded for face time.
For a film about a bunch of assassins, there really isn't a gratuitous amount of violence in the movie. A few people die here and there, which is to be expected in this kind of film, but there is so much build-up in the movie that the climax is unimpressive. After all the bullets have fallen, the dénouement — or what tries to pass for one — feels tacked on. To top it all off, the twist was both trite and slightly preposterous.
While the action and script were lacking, the film did have some high points.
There are a number of hilarious scenes that help the slow story to keep moving.
The cinematography is also done quite well, giving the whole film a gritty feel that makes it look better, if nothing else. Stylistically, "Smokin' Aces" looks like a heist movie should look — with over-the-top characters toting over the top weaponry. If the script could have lived up to the visuals, it would have been a fantastic movie.
The casting of generally comedic actors in more dramatic roles was both good and bad. Piven, for instance, gives a solid, emotional performance. However, Reynolds proves he's better suited for purely comedic roles.
The flick tries really hard to be an interesting variation of the classic heist film, but its lack of real substance makes it nothing more than another cheap action movie and a fairly boring one at that.
Reach the reporter at: zachary.richter@asu.edu.
