When a one million dollar hit is put out on Las Vegas illusionist and wannabe Mafioso Buddy “Aces” Israel, a number of unsavory figures track him down to his penthouse suite in Lake Tahoe and raise hell trying to collect the bounty.Smokin Aces certainly had its share of memorable characters which livened up the screen, including the sadistic Tremor Brothers, a pair of female assassins (one of which was R&B singer Alicia Keys) and Ryan Reynolds who earned some action chops as a somewhat straight laced FBI agent. Once the attack on Buddy’s penthouse started, its hyperkinetic pace and stylized nature kept action fans contented until the credits rolled.
But it failed to capitalize upon the obvious visual storytelling talents of its director Joe Carnahan. Unfortunately, he has no one to blame but himself because he wrote the script, and the story spent so much time ineffectively setting up most of the players in the hunt for Buddy that by the time the violence did start, the audience was indifferent as to who got killed or even if anyone got Buddy. Also, there were two specific story points that seemed to be totally unnecessary and succeeded only in slowing it to a halt. One was the Matthew Fox (Dr. Jack in Lost) cameo which only went on for as long as it did because he was in the menial part and the other was the run-in Hollis had with an ADD suffering kid that rivaled Jar Jar Binks in annoyance. Carnahan tried to go Tarantino and make Smokin Aces the kind of film people would easily and readily quote lines from (a permanent part of pop culture) but it was nothing more than a good looking wannabe.
Grade: C
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