Film review: Smokin' Aces

Watching the first fifteen minutes of Smokin' Aces, I was reminded of the 2000 X-Men film. There, much of the celluloid was chewed up to offer a background and special powers roll call for all of the characters. In Aces, we get the same setup, although "powers" has been replaced by "killing method." This saves us the time from having to get to know them, I suspect.

The film was written and directed by Joe Carnahan whose big break came in the form of Blood Guts Bullets and Octane, a film he wrote, directed, produced, edited, and starred in. It is alleged the film was made for $8,000. I suspect the Aces fake blood budget alone was ten times that number.

A dying mob boss, Primo Spirazza (Joseph Ruskin), puts out a hit on a strung out magician, Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven), who has become deeply involved in the mob and has made a deal with the FBI to turn over evidence against Spirazza and his gang. Word spreads that Spirazza is offering a million for Israel and one of his internal organs. Enter a cast of many: the bondsmen Jack (Ben Affleck), "Pistol" Pete (Peter Berg), and Hollis (Martin Henderson), all hired by alcoholic attorney Rip (Jason Bateman); the femme fatales Georgia (Alicia Keys) and Sharice (Taraji P. Henson); the boisterous and violent Tremor brothers Darwin (Chris Pine), Jeeves (Kevin Durand), and Lester (Maury Sterling); and the ever-elusive Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan). Racing to get to Israel before this macabre group are FBI partners Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and Carruthers (Ray Liotta), under the order of their boss Locke (Andy Garcia). See how much space it took me to introduce the characters? Imagine that in the film.

Besides the introductory exposition, we are provided a conclusionary exposition wherein, true to so many films before it, Locke offers a drawn out (and a bit convoluted) story about the real reason the FBI wanted Aces. These sections bookend a bunch of gunfire and blood.

It is clear that Carnahan likely worships at the altar of Quentin Tarantino. Like Pulp Fiction, there are moments where time shifts, although not as markedly, which is unfortunate. Perhaps Carnahan hadn't intended this. However, if he hadn't, he should pretend he had. Take, for example, the various killers and FBI agents who climb into elevators at the hotel where Israel is hiding out. The characters might as well have scaled the building with nothing more than their fingernails for the time it took them to reach the top. There is also a bit of Tarantino-esque dialogue spouted between gunfire, although it could never touch Tarantino's. Amongst the plot holes was the strange ebb and flow of the FBI agents' concern for getting to Israel before all of these killers (which they knew were on their way.) They actually stop for lunch. I'm not kidding.

The acting is sketchy. Keys and Henson, both good actors, embodied the only two characters interesting enough to hold our attention. Some were over-the-top caricatures (the Tremor brothers) and some were just silly (Reynolds). Seasoned actors Liotta and Garcia work with what they've got, which isn't much.

As a pupil of the writing arts, I learned that some of the most interesting stories start as close to the end as possible. In the case of Aces, this would have been ideal. Then we would have at least hit the ground running and maybe the flying bullets would have distracted us from the story. It would have also made this film much, much shorter.