Well, it's January, that special time of the year when movie studios are more interested in marketing their recently nominated films to Academy members than in releasing a decent product. Joining such illustrious late January releases as Big Momma's House 2 is Smokin' Aces, a film starring Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, and Jeremy Piven. It's a movie that features a big cast, bigger guns, lots of hookers and plenty of problems.
A significant one is that the film's plot is never really made all that clear despite an extended explanation using multiple flashbacks, voiceovers and split screens. Essentially though, two FBI agents, played by Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder), overhear a plan by the mafia to take out Buddy 'Aces' Israel (Pivens). Aces is a Las Vegas showman with ties to the mob who plans to gain immunity by testifying against Primo Sparazza, the head of the family. So with the FBI scrambling to protect their only witness, no less than four separate teams of hired mercenaries are sent to Lake Tahoe (where Aces is staying) with the hope that at least one of them will manage to get the job done. There is also, as is customary in this genre, a big 'ole twist at the end that is easily predicted within the first twenty minutes or so.
With so many guns, knives and chainsaws in the hands of professional killers, not too many people are destined to make it out standing up (or even with all of their limbs). But however explosive this situation might sound, it turns out that not too much of interest ever really happens for a good portion of the movie. Writer/director Joe Carnahan tries to distract the audience from this fact by employing all kinds of tricks, such as jarring edits, dizzying handheld shots, spontaneous slow motion and random close-ups, but it's never enough to make anyone forget that the only thing that's happening is two people talking in a van. And when the climactic action sequence occurs, Carnahan's tricks have become so stale that when used to increase the tension of the action it feels tired and fails to be the least bit exciting.
Not helping matters are characters so thinly written that they are impossible to invest any kind of interest in. And the cast, with the exception of a refreshingly funny cameo by Jason Bateman (TV's Arrested Development) and a surprisingly well-rounded performance from Ryan Reynolds, are all fairly bland. Alicia Keyes decides to give the acting thing a go, playing one of the contract killers, but she doesn't do much aside from shoot sassy looks and look sexy while holding a gun. Garcia, who plays the head of the FBI unit in charge of the Sparazza case, does his laid-back Ocean's 11 shtick (this time with an awful southern accent), and Affleck, fresh off a credibility-saving Golden Globe nominated performance in Hollywoodland, tries hard to be the tough guy, but plays it so straight that he's flat out forgettable. And the sleazy goatee he sports should never be worn by anybody. Ever. Then again, it's hard to blame any of these actors because none were given much to work with in the first place. Even Piven, so maniacally funny on HBO's Entourage, is only given a few good quips in the beginning before being reduced to long, coked-out gazes into some unseen dimension.
In the end this movie doesn't succeed with anything it tries to do. Its action sequences are dull, the dialogue is not nearly as hip or witty as the filmmakers seem to think it is (unless you're particularly tickled by lines such as, "Stop acting like somebody took a s--- in your cereal bowl"), and scenes that try desperately to be irreverent fall flat (one features a prepubescent ninja who hasn't taken his Ritalin). It almost goes without saying that the dramatic sequences, which don't match up at all with the rest of the film's tone, hardly resonate and only serve to prolong the hopeless tedium that is viewing this film. So many elements have been thrown at the audience that one quickly becomes numb to any of the effects and the movie becomes an aimless exercise in excess. It's difficult to find a reason to justify watching Smokin' Aces. You're better off waiting for the good movies released in December to come out on DVD.
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