Smokin’ Aces

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven and Ryan Reynolds

Written by: Joe Carnahan

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Rated: R

It’s big, it’s dumb and it’s stupid, but writer/director Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces is a fun, stylish cinematic card trick. Prominent characters and big-name actors flit back and forth quickly as plot elements drift in and out of sight. Pacing switches without warning, slowly drawing out details in meticulous scenes that unexpectedly give way to thundering action. Like any good stage magician or street hustler, Carnahan casts the audience’s attention in misleading directions. Characters, roles and identities switch while attentions are cast away from them. It’s not much to think about, but it’s a lot to watch. One hour and 48 minutes pass briskly in the refreshing Zen-like trance of big, harmless, glossy Multiplex multi-violence.

Jeremy Piven is Buddy Israel, a big time stage magician who made enemies becoming a big player in organized crime. He’s turned on his associates and offered to testify against some of the biggest names in organized crime. Andy Garcia plays a federal agent who has cut Israel a deal that includes a witness relocation disappearing act if he cooperates. An ailing mob boss offers $1 million dollars to any assassin who can kill Israel and deliver his heart. That kind of money summons a colorful group of assassins to Lake Tahoe where Israel is hiding out in a hotel penthouse under heavy security.

Dedicated FBI agents Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta) race to Lake Tahoe to try to avert catastrophe, but the real focus of the film is on the assassins. Alicia Keyes and Taraji P. Henson make for surprisingly realistic black feminist assassins. Henson and Keyes’ characters end up being a lot less absurd than they sound thanks mostly to amazing acting on their part. Nestor Carbonell compellingly plays a former CIA man who is now a brilliantly dangerous high-priced killer. Rising, young actors Chris Pine, Kevin Durand and Maury Sterling play the Tremor Brothers – punk neo-Nazis who perform reckless, wild berserker style hits. Scottish actor Tommy Flanagan plays Lazlo Soot – an assassin who works in a different disguise tailored to every hit. Finally, Martin Henderson, Ben Affleck and Peter Berg play bounty hunters who are looking to bring in Israel themselves.

As interesting as much of the acting is here, the cast is so huge that no one gets a satisfying amount of screen time. Furthermore, there’s a huge body count in this film and even if an actor has a big name, there is no guarantee his character is going to make it through the end of the film. Some surprisingly big names bow out quite early as the carnage begins. This is a film that toys with nearly every expectation a dedicated action film audience has.

There are some interesting performances here, but they rarely happen onscreen at the same time. Affleck, Garcia, Liotta, Piven, Reynolds and company all put in respectably textured performances for a mindless action film. They tend to interact with the plot and the camera much more than they do each other, making what could’ve been a really impressive ensemble crime drama turn into an action film with a million very sharp and shiny moving pieces. This film is wildly erratic. Some of the best scenes are complete throwaway moments that aren’t at all integral to the plot. Chris Pine engages in a very stirring and peculiar conversation with the corpse of a man he kills early in the film. Martin Henderson has a cleverly framed moment with him at film’s end. Much earlier on, Henderson gets terrorized by a kid hopped up on Ritalin. It’s a great trip to the multiplex if you’re patient enough to let scenes like these come at their own pace. VS