After reviewing several films I liked or loved, I figured it was about time to go negative. I really did not like this movie. Smokin' Aces was made in 2006, written and directed by Joe Carnahan. Carnahan created the excellent cop movie Narc back in 2002, and had assembled a huge cast for this picture. The personnel behind it, combined with a good marketing campaign had me revved up for it right on through the trailers in the movie theater. And then I actually watched the film.
Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven) is a small time Vegas performer who has inside info on a big time mob boss and is going to rat him out. The FBI is placing him under witness protection when the hit gets put out on Israel. Plenty of hitmen line up to take a crack at Israel, all on the same day, as the FBI tries frantically to keep him alive. Not exactly the most original plot, but one I could stand if it was accompanied by the appropriate amounts of comedy and action. This film had neither.
Carnahan fails to strike up any real humor, Piven plays Israel like a coked-out Ari Gold, and the host of otherworldly hitmen merely come off as bizarre. The giant cast is mostly adequate, but there are a few swing and misses. Nobody really deserves special mention. The only two people with even moderately watchable moments are the rapper Common as Israel's bodyguard, and Ryan Reynolds as one of the FBI agents. Even they only do enough to get by.
With sparse action this film feels a lot longer than its 109 minutes, and never really finds itself. I won't spoil it for those of you who wish to subject yourselves, but the conclusion is especially botched as it essentially negates the purpose of the entire film. All things considered it is mostly unoriginal, boring, and actually pretty depressing despite the fact that I didn't care about anybody the entire film. Bad things for a comic book movie.
By the way, in case your interested a sequel was just released this year called Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions there as I probably won't be seeing it.
8/30
Agreed, this movie sucked. It's attempts at poignancy especially made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteI can always tell how bad a film is (IMO) by how much of it I remember later - the more I remember the more I liked it. I've seen this film and remember absolutely nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteHah, I'm the same way, Mom. I was just trying to remember what was so bad about the ending, and I could't think of it for the life of me.
ReplyDeleteNot especially memorable, but I wouldn't have lambasted it so much... there was some good action and a couple of well-played, interesting characters: I enjoyed the subplots involving Ryan Reynold's and Martin Henderson's characters. I found the ending appropriately ironic and unexpected albeit far from mindblowing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the 8/30 ranking. Watched this movie when I was home sick one time. Like Ben's mom mentioned, can't actually remember much about it. I guess it may have been to to cough medicine and illness, but for blogs sake, i will say it was cuz the movie blew hardcore. nice article, thanks adam!
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