Smokin Aces, I always type it Smoking Aces, but it’s definitely Smokin. There is actually a lot of smoke in this movie, guns too, but the Aces come from the man who everyone wants, Buddy 'Aces' Israel. Everyone from hit men to the FBI want to get hold of this Las Vegas showman turned gangers snitch, but who will get to him first. The Main characters are the FBI who needs to get their man to prosecute various mobsters involved in various dodgy deals, the supporting cast as the various hit men, assassins and hired crazy killers who want to get their hands on Buddy for the Price on his head from his enemies.
Gunshots, Complex interwoven storylines, character mythology are all forced upon us some are done more smoothly than others. The story is very complex and its not shown in a visual fashion its often monologues or voice over where an incredible amount of information is packed in. The director Joe Carnahan is obviously a big fan of Guy Ritchie’s as his movie takes many cues from Snatch and Lock Stock & Two smoking barrels. The characters are introduced in similar fashion with appropriately stylistic font types displaying it on screen, you also have the merging storylines, the conflict of interests and the hip and funky soundtrack.
It doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of the previous mentioned Guy Ritchie movies though, it’s not as well paced, and the story is often forced down the throat rather than slowly poured. Not many of the characters are really likeable, only Alicia Keys's character, Ryan Reynolds character and his partner played by Ray Liotta make us show any real interest. Andy Garcia also plays a cop in this movie but because of the setting and the music I kept thinking he was playing his character in the Oceans movie, maybe that was just me. The second problem with the movie is that it doesn’t quite know what to be, some of its ideas are obviously larger than life and caricatures, but at the same time is also tries to be a straight up story too with the FBI angle, especially going into he last quarter of the movie.
So to sum up if you loved lock stock and snatch liked the high jinks and settings of Oceans 11 you might get a kick out of this, if you like cop dramas maybe also for you.
