Smokin' Aces

[Dukefrukem]

Wow. I watched this for the second time on HBO last night... What an awful awful movie (after having enjoyed it somewhat the first time I saw it). The things that stand out to be so cool the first time come off questionable, unfuny and forced... most of the interactions between assassins don't make any sense... here's some things that made me scratch my head

1. Shooing at the sniper from bulding to building. They obviously couldn't see where the shots were coming from, so they just blindly shoot out the window??
2. The three hicks that come running out of the elevator, why didn't security start shooting immediately? Why wait until all three of them were out?
3. the shootout in the elevator... too reservoir dogsish?
4. the ending scene when the guy who got dropped in the lake... is this just a very poor attempt at humor? (shoots the hick as he walks away without looking)

Thoughts on this movie?

[DrewG]

I hated it as well, I'll just post what I wrote about it in February 07. And by the way, I've got no answers for your spoiler inquiry...quite frankly I've really forgotten the movie altogether haha.

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Smokin’ Aces as a film is much like the characters that inhabit it: blindly firing their guns with rapid, itchy, glitzy inconsistency come whatever casualties may, in this case an accumulation of redundancy and frustration for the average moviegoer. The story tells of the “white whale of snitches” Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel (Jeremy Piven), a Las Vegas entertainer and showman who has just made himself a whole bunch of enemies he can’t afford by snitching to the FBI about his Mafioso affiliations. Strung out atop his Lake Tahoe suite, the one million dollar bounty hanging over his head draws all kinds of diverse professional killers: neo-Nazi brothers, lesbian femme fatales, dudes just looking for money and FBI Agents Messner and Carruthers (Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) to make sure Buddy stays alive long enough to turn state’s evidence. Somewhere in translation this interesting enough outline for a story becomes a bullet-ridden corpse of unnecessary instances, misplaced emotional weight, and maddening flash back and exposition dependent work of making constant dissatisfaction into an art form.

It might be easier to first address the things that work in Smokin’ Aces, which should be easy considered not very much falls under this category. Sprinkled about are scenes of genuine intensity and a sense of cooler-than-thou that rings true due in heavy part to the direction of Joe Carnahan who garnered fame and admiration for his 2002 cops and criminals gritfest Narc. You can really see the nuances he throws in to make the film feel different than the other shoot-em ups: there’s such a nice factor of controlled chaos, not a frenzied cut and edit job but more of a restrained sense of action that the camera doesn’t need to induce nausea when there’s a shootout going on. In this way I found the film to be infinitely more tolerable and even comforting in that there was an edge taken off the over the topness that is so common in films of this genre of action with inevitability of an ending bloodbath. If anything, Carnahan at least makes the film easy on the eyes with some neat visual tricks that aren’t ostentatious in nature, such as a conversation between Piven and Sir Ivy (Common) as they are creatively framed by mirrors reflective of the division escalating within the exchange. Carnahan might show a directing patience somewhat rare within the cinema of bullets, blood and broads (get this, I didn’t even see any slow motion shots!) but apart from his best efforts, everything else about Smokin’ Aces tears so viciously at the seams.

If Carnahan’s direction is a welcome positive, consider his writing to be a disastrous, bastard red-headed step child negative. It’s exactly what you expect it to be, and even with your expectations at sea level you’re going to want to rip your hair out: we’ve got the fast talking cops spouting constant background information (with of course, flashbacks to accompany it), f-bomb’s flying out of the mouths of invincible contract killers, meaningless supporting characters spouting out hipster dialogue before being shot to pieces and it doesn’t even end there. I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare or even a revolution of the somewhat Tarantino-esque opera of varied characters coming together for a supposed big payoff, but the film’s so plagued by its tired excuses of revelation and turns of emotional screws that it all comes off unbelievably tedious and tiresome. At its absolute worst the script is an uneven mess of emotional black holes, unwelcome comedy and a mind-numbingly massive amount of suspension of disbelief. Are we to believe that someone who’s been shot about 10 times and then left to sit for 45 minutes has the willpower to use their firearm to any effect at all? I know this isn’t the beacon of film realism, but occurrences like the one mentioned are insults to the intelligence of anyone watching the film.

What about the administered comic relief, implemented as breaths between the films “breakneck” pace (it’s damn boring, with much less action than you’d think) and locomotive plot? Well, it’s not comic relief when it isn’t funny and the quirkiness feels enforced with the creativity of someone unbeknownst to definition of humor. This is more like comic punishment, painful in its rapidity feeling like sledgehammers to my funny bone inciting nothing more than cringes and embarrassment, not laughter. Oh wonderful, an obviously stoned lawyer type with cold sores on his lips waking up in his hotel room with a bra and thong on. Even better: an eye-patched, Ritalin consuming, grandchild with superhuman kung-fu reflexes and uncontrollable erections. Apparently Carnahan doesn’t know the definition of unnecessary and excessive either. Why so many characters and screen cues to tell us their names and occupation? Is the script too busy trying to be witty that it doesn’t have time to call anyone in the movie by name so we must be told flat out who they are? Do we have so many outlandishly different characters because it’s unbearably obvious that the filmmakers don’t have faith in a single one to hold our interest for more than 5 seconds before they’re disposed of? We don’t even have anyone to root for and even if you find characters you’re thinking are worthy of some feeling you’re going to be infuriated with just about anyone’s fate.

Maybe the comedy isn’t funny, but the desperate tries of Smokin’ Aces at emotional conflict and ethic questionability are side splitting. When we’re not being told to laugh or say “woah, cool!” by Smokin’ Aces we’re being told to feel something, anything for these cardboard characters. Carnahan is blissfully tone deaf at the emotional piano, playing out of tune keys that won’t evoke a slither of sympathy in the softest of souls. We’ll get the close up of the deep in thought character, cue the predictable slow piano, and cue me rubbing my forehead in the theater seat. To relate to these characters they must first be developed, and since none of them are how can I even come close to giving a crap about what path the movie takes them on? I guess the cast can be considered better than average, but it’s not like anyone really stands out besides Ryan Reynolds who again shows a nice, tight rope walk between the comedy and the serious. Besides Reynolds there’s Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys (simply beautiful), Common, Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck. I’m always amazed when a film’s numerous savvy and appropriately superfluous poster designs intrigue me more than the actual film. Consider Smokin’ Aces to be a perfect example. However, I still cared enough by the time the film’s big twist came, only to find myself offended at such a leap of faith, such a ludicrous chain of events, such an insult to anyone who had invested 100 minutes of their time in this pile of garbage. Sitting in the theater I felt so inclined to scream but instead laughed because I knew there was a God when I realized I hadn’t paid a dime to see it. May this supposed God have mercy on the poor souls who did.

[EyesWideOpen]

Such a bad movie.

[eternity]

I'll never understand the hate for this movie.

[transmogrifier]

I'm so going to watch this movie and love it.

[DSNT]

This movie is shite.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The desperation outruns the inspiration.