Summary - Good 3.0

When it comes to grading Smokin’ Aces, I’m splitting the difference between Spaceghost’s Really Great and BrianSez’s Barely OK. My Good reflects the movie’s stellar cast and glimmering Vegas visuals. That said, it ain’t good in any moral sense. In fact it’s a sociopathic cesspool that not only has no redeeming value, it sucks away a good 10% of the moral character of anyone who watches it – at least for a while.

The cockamamie but ultimately coherent plot is hard to follow, but hardly matters since it’s a farcical take on countless Vegas Mob movies. It goes like this. A Vegas showman gets a million dollar bounty placed on his head, which draws teams of hitters from both sides of the law like maggots to meat. He gets the hell out of dodge, holing up in a Tahoe penthouse suite, an ideal setting for the ensuing mayhem.

The result is like Tarantino crossed with De Palma, after drinking a case of Red Bull. IOW, it’s full of Mexican standoffs and buckets of blood lust. However, writer-director Joe Carnahan isn’t in the same league as those estimable geniuses, so Smokin’ Aces is nowhere near a classic.

What it is is a Who’s Who of rising and favorite actors, with more studs than Churchill Downs – Ryan Reynolds, Chris Pine, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia, Ben Afleck, Matthew Fox. Each gets to shine in sick but impressive fashion. Well, not all are sick but all are impressive. So are Alicia Keys and Taraji Henson as soul-sista hitgirls who give as good as they get.

Unfortunately most of them play characters who range from the morally tarnished down to the completely cretinous. Remember, Good doesn’t mean Good, it means reasonably entertaining. Smokin’ Aces is that.

Acting - Very Good 3.5

Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta make great FBI partners. Andy Garcia is a natural as an FBI mucky-muck.

Jeremy Piven’s Vegas showman/wiseguy would make his Ari Gold from Entourage blush. That said, Piven can play an egomaniacal showbiz bully in his sleep. Common is less impressive as his chief henchman.

Ben Affleck is also ideal as a bounty hunter, with the great Peter Berg making a rare screen appearance as one of his crew.

Alicia Keys and Taraji Henson are interesting as a pair of hitgirls. Henson is a natural as a tough-talking killer. OTOH, Keys seems like she’s embarrassed to be in the movie, which she should be given how demeaning it is.

The other bold-faced names in the large cast fly by in a bit of a blur.

• Chris Pine is a scummy revelation as an apparently meth-addled hitman. Three years later he became Capt. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot.
• Joel Edgerton is way less impressive than usual as a mob enforcer.
• Jason Bateman, Matthew Fox and Curtis Armstrong have small but entertaining parts, Fox most of all, perhaps because we don’t think of him in comic movies.
• Obligatory Wayne Newton cameo, given that it’s a Vegas movie.

Film - Good 3.0

45 stunts and two dozen drivers add up to lots and lots of action. Most of it is set in and around South Lake Tahoe, an underused location for Vegas mob films.

Edge - Horrid 3.8

Smokin’ Aces traffics in the worst stereotypes imaginable, including of African-Americans. Disappointing then that it features prominent Obama supporters Common and Taraji Henson. Here’s guessing that Mrs. Obama won’t be allowing this movie to be screened in her White House.

The N-word flies fast and thick, to give a taste of the movie's Vile rudeness.

Reality - Surreal 3.0

Extreme surrealism across the board – circumstantially, physically and biologically.

The passel of hitmen converging on a single penthouse suite, anticipating each insane turn of events for the moment they will strike? That’s circumstantially surreal.

The hails of gunfire that miraculously leave the chosen ones standing? That’s physically surreal.

The masks and plastic surgery? Biologically surreal.

2 Comments

• Wick Dec 31, 2012 10:27AM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  No worries. It’s a flawed movie that must draw as many negative reactions as positive. So having a Barely OK grade in the mix is helpful.

• BrianSez Dec 30, 2012 8:09AM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  I had an especially terse review at the time; I must have been really annoyed or something

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