Smokin' Aces
(dir. Joe Carnahan)
Big cast for this trashy mob hit throwaway thriller that manages to take that ultraviolent guns, girls and gangs Tarantino mould and have fun with it, rather than boring you with another pointless beer-ad rip-off: Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Jason Bateman, Common, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg.
It's a simple Game Of Death style plot: flashy Vegas magician Buddy "Aces" Israel (the awesome Jeremy "Ari from Entourage" Piven) has got mixed up with the mob, and is holed up in a Reno hotel penthouse after he's decided to turn state's evidence. The mob put out a contract on him, and the film's basically a race between various teams of assassins, some bondsmen and the Feds to get to him first.
Piven's on fire here (sometimes literally) - a paranoid coked-out sleazeball manically shuffling cards in his dressing gown, trying to hold it together long enough for FBI men Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds to take him into custody. Alicia Keys and Common have both been to that school of totally convincing hip hop actors. Jason Bateman's shady lawyer is a great cameo. Even Baffleck is decent - there's hope for his post Bennifer career yet.
It veers in tone at times (which kind of works), and there's a flaw in the ending which lets it down a bit, but overall Joe "Narc" Carnahan delivers one of those pumped-up live action cartoons that remembers how to have fun with the blow-the-fuck-out-of-everything genre. Also, it's only a touch over 100 minutes, which feels pretty compact these days.
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29th Dec 2006 - Tumblr
3.5