"Smokin' Aces" (2007) - Movie Review

The movie with a surprising twist in the end, making the audience guessing all the time is one of the style, all the Hollywood directors have been constantly attempting and have succeeded sometimes. “Fight Club”, “Memento”, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” are some of the few to be named in that category which immaculately succeeded in making the viewers go crazy and just wonder how they missed it. The key for the success of those movies is not the twisted ending but the brilliant screenplay consistently occupying the audience’s mind to enjoy the substantive contents of the film. The clever ending just formed the bonus for the already enthralled viewers. The lesson to be learned is when some one attempts in that genre, they should keep in mind that the ninety nine percent to work on the story and style than on the mind boggling ending. “Smokin Aces” directed by Joe Carnahan fails consistently letting down while also trying to be too clever and assuming audience to be feeble minded.

The movie starts off with the FBI agents Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and Donald Carruthers (Ray Liota) tracking that mob head Primo Sparazza wants the key witness Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven) against him to be dead and places a one million dollar for his heart. The stakes are high and hence there are bunch of people who gets the contract while the FBI tries to protect him. The audience gets to know a lot of characters during this whole situation. Even though the concept of flashing the name of the character when they appear was invented by Tarantino, it does not hurt to use the same technique for nice story telling. There needs to be a necessary though and there are at least fifteen character introduced in that fashion. I was not able to remember any one of their names and I got the story properly. There is no definition for anyone’s character using that technique. There are umpteen people going all around the place where Buddy Israel is and easily get access by all means. FBI even though have not fixed the deal with Buddy Israel does the flaky job of sending the agents just when they hear the hit, while they do not even have a surveillance over his place. The film pretty much gave away the suspense when both the agents discuss about Sporazza having so many facial surgeries. Revealing that, the director had the hope of giving a mind turning ending is truly sad.

This piece entirely depended on technical department and without a proper solid script even a top notch crew cannot salvage a movie. Editing is really good migrating in between the umpteen characters but is not extraordinary. Soundtrack is not good at all which crucially plays a part in this kind of movie genre. Cinematography is good enough to give in the sleek and slick look demanded by the story.

Andy Garcia, Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven and of all Ray Liota are entirely gnawed away by the hole full of script. No one really gets a chance to show their skills except for Ryan Reynolds. There is a lot of potential in him and expect some stunning performances in near future for sure.

I did enjoy one particular sequence in the movie which was simply great and entertaining. The bail bondsman Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck) and his crew meet the lawyer Rip Reed played brilliantly by Jason Bateman who has the information about Buddy Israel. The sequence was nailed with precision by Jason Bateman. That’s the only highpoint of this movie.

“Smokin Aces” is another example of how risky is to mimic the great movies, which has accomplished the job of satisfying the cinematic entertainment while still sticking to the innovative and substantive film making. There is nothing wrong in attempting it, but underestimating the audience is a blunder. “Smokin Aces” tries so hard in fooling the audience that they fool themselves which made its own destructive factor.