9. Smokin' Aces
Ok, admittedly
Smokin Aces has a stupid premise, featuring a plan cooked up by a mob boss to kill his rival (whos also a magician, naturally) by making multiple master assassins and nutcases converg e on his Vegas hotel. Aside from how impractical the whole thing is why not just pay one person to do it and not suffer the ultraviolent complications the film suffered from a completely arbitrary twist, making what couldve been an intriguing plot seem ridiculous by the time the final pay-off rolls around. The audience were left puzzled by the plot development, which stacked up to a convoluted mess. There was a deep-cover FBI agent, bail bondsmen, Jason Bateman in a tutu, and far too many killers to keep track of, never mind adequately characterise. But Id ask you to do something novel with
Aces. Id ask you to take away the petty concerns of plot and characterisation, allowing you to drill down to the heart of what the film really is. Its simply an excuse for several people to shoot the crap out of each other over a series of protracted gun-battles, and it achieves this goal with aplomb. Its like a nine-year-old was asked to create his perfect film, and the ensuing result was infused with enough old Vegas glamour to make the Rat Pack come back to life. Its a potent combination of insanity, from characters to location. Theres neo-nazi chainsaw gangs, a blaxploitation duo of foxy ladies, a man who wears peoples faces, a Mexican nutcase and Ben Affleck being gunned down in one of the earlier reels of the film. Its an eclectic mix, lets put it like that. Its the sort of film you sit down to watch with a beer in your hand and your brain firmly in the off position. Its schlocky entertainment, there for a good time rather than to provoke thought while some films exist to make us question the universe and to deliver powerful messages,
Aces is not one of these films. Its plot merely exists to allow the entire enterprise to jump off the deep-end and into balls-out entertainment. Yet it doesnt descend into travesty. As it was once said, Joe Carnahan appears to be like Michael Bay, if Michael Bay was good at his job. While theres a smorgasbord of OH S***! moments where people are stabbed, proliferated in lift-shafts, thrown across lobbies by sniper rifles, sat down on chainsaws and simply shot to bits, it's all preseneted with real verve, flair, and above all, self-knowing audacity. Its the film Michael Bay would create if he had the imagination and the lack of Ritalin supplies to do so, such is its ridiculous variety and brilliant lack of shame. So if I have to sit through a damp squib of an ending for such a tremendous middle act, then so be it. After all, theres only one film where I can watch Chris Pine murder the ever-loving shit out of Ben Affleck.
Aces is a great bad film it understands what an action film can be if it just stops caring, and rushes headlong to that conclusion.