2.0 out of 5 stars
very poor direction ruins a great cast, Jan 16 2011
Smokin' Aces is a poor man's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The cast is beyond terrific. There's even the surprsisngly good Alicia Keys playing a hit woman! You have Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, Ryan Reynolds and Jeremy Piven in it so that's a pretty good crew. Throw in a gratuitous Ben Affleck and away we go.
Only we don't. The pacing of this movie should have been like Lock Stock. It's far too slow. It takes almost 20 minutes of talking to set up the premise. Then it's ultra violent but in such an obvious over-the-top way. I mean, one guy has a chainsaw. Hasn't that been done enough? Where are the new ideas?
The actual story is pretty cool--a team of hitmen descend on Lake Tahoe to try to snag the million dollar bounty on a Mafia snitch's head. The director, though, blew it. Another real misstep was his telegraphing scenes so we know who's behind a door or that someone has a gun we were stupid and it showed onscreen.
To the judge and jury, this director has went on to make the equally unwatchable A-Team movie that again had a stellar cast and went nowhere.
If you do buy the DVD, the extras are good but the movie itself is way off the mark.
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