Smokin' Aces is basically the same type of movie as The Usual
Suspects or Pulp Fiction, an ultraviolent black comedy with a central story told
through several different points of view in intersecting storylines. A mobster
orders a big-time hit - a million dollar contract on a mob stoolie named Buddy
Israel. The size of the bounty attracts every lowlife in the world, from
incompetent small-time crooks with a dream, to slick professional hit men with
elaborate electronics, weapons, and disguises. It has become common knowledge
that Israel is in the penthouse suite of a Tahoe hotel, and two FBI agents (Ryan
Reynolds and Ray Liotta) have to get him out of there safely before the army of
mercenaries can fill him with lead.
The most interesting
question about this film involves the vast gap between the critics and the
fanboys. It is rare to see such a massive difference between Rotten Tomatoes and
IMDb:
|
IMDB |
6.5 out of 10 |
|
Rotten Tomatoes |
25% positive reviews |
The critics hated it. The British critics hated it even more. Yet the
people seemed to like it. The explanation can easily be found by drilling down through the IMDB
demographics.
|
Age Under 18 |
7.6 |
|
18-29 |
6.7 |
|
30-44 |
6.1 |
|
45 or older |
5.6 |
|
Top 1000 voters |
5.3 |
So it's a movie for teenaged fanboys. This obviously didn't help the
writer/director get positive reviews since very few movie reviewers are less
than 18 years old. The film's narrowly targeted appeal also hurt at the box
office. The R rating meant that the people who would have liked it the most
couldn't get in to see it. It did open in the #2 spot with a fairly solid $14
million weekend, but dropped rapidly and finished with only $35m. A 2.5
multiplier (35/14) is disappointing, and indicative of one of two things.
Either the business was heavily front-loaded, which is often the case with
fanboy movies, or the word of mouth was disappointing. In this case it was
probably more of the former than the latter.
The movie was far better than I expected. I avoided it for as long as
possible because the trailer made it seem to be a shallow and chaotic
slay-fest, and I hate that kind of film. As it turns out, that was only about
15% of the film's running time, and the rest of it included some fairly
interesting character development and an underlying mystery about the
relationship between the mobster ordering the hit, the FBI, and the guy who is
to be hit. The director also demonstrated some technical virtuosity.
Although the script was deeper and richer than expected, there were still
some problems in the narrative. The sheer quantity of offbeat hit men
prevented the script from developing them all, and too much of the story was
revealed by long monologues over flashbacks, ala The Usual Suspects.
Bottom line, it's not a genre classic, but a solid film which is fun for
genre nuts. On the other hand, but is likely to have little or no appeal for
those on the outside looking in.
