solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

Joe Carnahan, Is a man I was just getting to like, I'm a massive fan of 'Narc', and I was really hoping for something in the same vein from his follow up 'Smokin' Aces'. Right from the off I haven't been crazy about the feel I was getting from the film and after viewing it my suspicions were confirmed.

The basic plot revolves around a popular Vegas showman, Buddy 'Aces' Israel (Jeremy Piven), who after getting in too deep too fast with the Mob decides to give evidence against his former 'associates', in return for his own safety. With Israel being held in protective custody (in a not too shabby Lake Tahoe penthouse, naturally), the word soon leaks out of his location, and with a mob bounty on his head every assassin worth a damn is soon on their way to his location to earn themselves some pocket money.

With a host of relatively despicable characters already on display, balance comes in the form of two relatively stereotypical FBI agents; young, smart and idealistic (Ryan Reynolds) and old, overweight and weathered (Ray Liotta). So Messner(Reynolds) and Caruthers(Liotta) are despatched to Lake Tahoe to retrieve Buddy and escort him to the trial, but with more than a couple of gun-toting jackass's between them, and their witless witness you know there's going to be trouble.

With a host of really great actors both in leads and in supporting roles It's a shame that the character problems seem evident up front. If the lines had been lumped together into maybe a couple of characters the script would have perhaps held up, but spread between the huge number of characters on offer here it simply buckles under the weight. It feels like Carnhan is trying hard to establish memorable villains, heroes we'll remember and generally well rounded action movie characters but because we spend so little time with each of them they all end up forgettable.

At the end of the day it's an action movie, and in that area it succeeds. With shoot-outs breaking out before the film hit's the twenty minute mark and the gun battles just escalating in participants and complexity as the film proceeds. Unfortunately no matter how extensive the gun-play it can't make up for the increasingly shallow plot and lack of character development.

Even action movies need to draw you in, and Smokin' Aces just never quite grabbed me and pulled me in the right direction. I wanted to be, but It just couldn't get a grip on me. It's must be difficult for any new comedy-gangster movies to find somewhere new to go after Tarantino and all the directors that followed him pretty much dried that genre out, and Smokin' Aces doesn't break any new ground here.

I feel like I've perhaps been overly hard on Smokin' Aces, and I have to say I didn't walk out of the film feeling disgruntled, the film did entertain me on a very basic level but after seeing 'Narc' I wanted more from it. I have a feeling Carnahan is going to come back strong with the other films he has in the pipeline, but until then Smokin' Aces is at best forgettable popcorn fare.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 1:13 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.