Smokin Aces
Las Vegas Magician Buddy “Aces” Israel is in hiding, as he has turned against a high ranking mob boss Sparazza – and now Sparazza has put a $1m bounty on him.
A slew of hit-men and women are now all vying for the bounty, while two FBI agents are trying to get to him first in order to get him to safety as they await an immunity deal from their boss.
But who will get to Aces first?
Direction
Bright, fast, loud and over the top from Joe Carnahan. There are some fun ‘long takes’ and the action doesn’t really slow down too much.
Cast/Characters
The cast is large, and full of either then big names, or soon to be big names… so here they are …
Jeremy Piven as Aces, Common as Ivy his head of security, and Joel Edgerton as Hugo his bodyguard.
Ben Affleck as Jack Dupree a bail bondsman on his way to pick up Aces with his colleagues Peter Deeks (Peter Berg) and Hollis Elmore (Martin Henderson).
The “Tremor” brothers, a trio of neo nazi’s after the bounty, played by Chris Pine, Kevin Durand and Maury Sterling.
FBI agents Carruthers and Messner (Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds), who are awaiting orders from their boss Locke (Andy Garcia).
Alicia Keys and Taraji P Henson as Sykes and Watters two other hitters trying to get the bounty.
Lost stars Nestor Carbonell (as another hit-man) and Matthew Fox as a hotel security guard). Tommy Flnannagan as Lazlo, who is offscreen for a bulk of the film as he wears a mask of Hugo for most of the film.
Jason Bateman as Aces’ lawyer.
Breakdown
Over the top action romp, with not enough self awareness to consider it meta. The way it acts out, it feels like its trying to be serious, but the audience is so lost in what each of the multiple ‘hitters’ plans are, we forget who we are supposed to be rooting for.
There is a very heavy expositional first 20 minutes, that ‘introduce’ all the characters, including ‘historic and long dead’ ones that play important parts in the final act. Even in a second viewing of this after watching the whole movie, it still gave me a headache!
This gives a ‘gotcha’ ending – that plays a lot like the gotcha ending of The Usual Suspects, but nowhere near as good. It’s quite hard to not work out that once the “first” reveal is made in regards to Aces and Sparazza, that the “second” reveal is coming, of who Sparazza actually is.
The whose who of cast is big… too big… but soon to be big names Reynolds and Henson get my MVP.
Overall
Don’t go in expecting too much from this, its silly, convoluted at times, trying to be a mixture of better movies.
Less characters, a shorter run-time then this would have scored higher, but it just scrapes through with some solid performances by the cast.
3/5
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