Smokin' Aces
advertising campaign has been really impressive over the last month or so, everything from director Joe Carnahan releasing the movie's script online, to releasing the movie's credits, tons of cool posters and his Q & A sessions over at CHUD. I was dying to see this movie. Sure it would probably let me down more than Batman and Robin, but I went in with high hopes. The movie starts and we meet two members of what is a VERY large cast. With so many characters, it's best that we refer to most of them by their real name. We meet Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds staking out a guy's house in a truck full of complex computers and various gadgetry. Their character names rise onto the screen with big bold white letters trying way too hard to be cool. Oh boy, this ain't gonna be good. Then what follows is lots of talking, loud noises, jumps, cuts and edits that go back and forth and I'm completely lost to this film's plot. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I was sitting there thinking WTF is going on? Especially Ben Affleck giving an exposition speech whilst playing pool, I understood about 5% of what he was saying. But then I think I picked up what the plot was. A mafia-boss magician known as "Buddy Israel" (Jeremy Piven) has a million dollar bounty on his head. He locks himself in the top floor of a penthouse apartment, and the film chronicles different perspectives of people who all want him dead, including the FBI. At least I think that was the plot, and if it wasn't, then I got to watch my own private movie because that storyline worked for me! We meet Andy Garcia (FBI chief), Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson (female hitmen), Jason Bateman (funny lawyer dude) and The Tremor Brothers (group of punk hitmen). Then, BAM! One of the main characters dies early on (I won't mention which one)
and they play Ennio Morricone's score from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Right now, at this point I should be crapping all over this movie. You don't use "The Story of a Soldier" music in any movie other than Leone's, but something happens. The scene is so well done, with great visuals, acting and pacing that I loved it! I loved it so much. It was tight, emotional and gave the movie an atmosphere that I really wasn't expecting. There really is some depth to this explosion heavy popcorn flick. From then on, I liked nearly everything else this movie was to deliver. Seriously, I can't believe how emotional some of these scenes get. You find yourself attached to certain characters, and you have no idea why but you want them to live. The problem is of course, they don't all live and characters are dying all over the joint and Carnahan loves to play with your heart strings. The music and soundtrack matches the emotional visuals so well, Carnahan is clearly not some two-bit hack director. He is the real deal. The performances in this large cast is extremely impressive. Ryan Reynolds absolutely blew me away in the first movie I have ever seen him in. His energy and dramatic depth was tremendous and although the movie is continuously shifting from back and forth from different perspectives, he truly leads this movie. A tremendous performance. The other show stealing performance was that of Jeremy Piven as "Buddy Israel". We watch the downward spiral of the once charismatic illusionist as he delves deeper and deeper into "that bad place" in our minds. We even see the guy cry on screen, but it never once gets silly or ridiculous. This is a desperate character and we can't help but feel for him. His empire is collapsing. A scene involving him talking too one of his bodyguards (the rapper Common, fucking incredible for a first time movie role) is utterly heartbreaking. Worth the ticket price alone. I hear from a lot of people that this is a "Diet Tarantino" movie, and yeah it does have a really big True Romance feel (especially in it's third act) but for me it reeks more of Domino and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I can guarantee if you like all or most of those movies above you will love this, otherwise I can see this film splitting audiences right down the middle. rating: 3.5
Very, very impressive movie. This is what all the Guy Ritchie movies lack for me in this "Post Tarantino" world and that's great performances and emotional depth. I'm not going to go crazy and give this movie an 8 but if you read my whole review.... you can tell I really dig this movie.