Smokin' Aces

Smokin’ Aces, the rowdy sophomore directing effort from up and comer Joe Carnahan is a complete 180° turn away from his debut Narc, the low key, gritty cop drama that made him a notable new name. While Narc strived to create true to life chills, Smokin' Aces is more the sort of film intended to elicit whoops and hollers. I’m not going to accuse it of being inferior, but I will say that it is much more of a disposable entertainment piece than its predecessor. Fortunately, this is perhaps the greatest, most intense action trifle to come along in quite a while. Carnahan rips off The Conversation and just about everything by Quentin Tarrantino, but a little bit of borrowing here and there is excusable when the outcome is such a fun and wicked spectacle.

Smokin’ Aces is like a wild carnival ride. By the time that it’s over you are likely to be thrilled, disoriented, and shocked at where everyone has landed. There’s a final act “twist” that feels like a flimsy coda, but the long journey getting there is just such a vicious thrill ride that you can’t help but love this thing. The general premise involves mob rat, Buddy “Aces” Israel, (Jeremy Piven) who is supposedly being targeted in one of the highest paying assassination jobs of all time. Hit men and women from all walks of life compete to besiege his hotel suite and collect the bounty on his heart (yes, heart) without ending up dead themselves. By the time the movie climaxes, there’s many an unstable murderer parading in and around Israel’s crowded hotel. There’s so much death and blood splatter that hardly anyone seems capable of coming out alive and the twists and turns of who lives and who dies make this quite an insatiably involving experience. In most action films it’s clear: the marquee name lives, the nobody dies. In this cast of rookies and B-level actors everyone is fair game. More importantly, Carnahan has a brilliant knack for capturing the genuine emotions behind these action movie clichés. He litters the film with surreal and hyper stylized violence but still manages to make us care about these people despite how ludicrous the world around them seems.

There’s a pretty clear understanding between the filmmakers and the audience that what you’re paying for with this one is a low brow, tour de force of giggles and violence and on those terms, Smokin’ Aces excels. It takes a while to gear up and settles down a little too much near the end, but while it’s in motion, it is a truly exciting movie loaded with great performances, brilliantly staged action, and an unnerving techno score. It’s above average for a film of this kind, but do not enter if you don’t want an R-rated bloody good time.

Grade: B+