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Directed by: Joe Carnahan Starring: Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta Smokin' Aces is the new crime flick from the guy who brought us Narc. Smokin' Aces kicks more rear end than any movie in recent memory. This is a film that can melt your face, and topple all other movies like a deck of cards. The movie shifts from comedy to seriousness on the fly, and the overall tone is pretty "out there". But it works in the movie's favor, with lightning fast pacing, and a highly entertaining blend of various styles. The ensemble cast rocks hardcore. Jeremy Piven really shines as Buddy "Aces" Israel, giving us the best emotional scenes. Then you have "The Tremors" gang of chainsaw-toting neo-nazis, they bring the fun to the table. Ben Affleck is hilarious in his smaller role, and it's probably his best work. The colorful cast of characters is the film's strongest aspect, making the improbable story come to life. If you want to have your rear end kicked by an amazing flick, go to your local theater and catch Smokin' Aces. RATING: 5.0 PROS: Brisk pacing, great cast, stylish violence, and a masterful balance of comedy and drama. CONS: Could use a good extra 15 minutes to flesh out the main plot. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475394/ PsychoGoatee fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jan 27, 2007 |
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Jan 27, 2007 10:17
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All I can really say is that this is loving ridiculous, in every aspect. Hilarious, unbelievably violent, and with more "what the hell just happened?!" moments than I've ever seen on the big screen. Jason Bateman is hilarious, and even Affleck and Reynolds are enjoyable. Unfortunately, the story is like stale bread on an otherwise delicious sandwich and makes for 20 minutes of snore time. Bring on The Tremors spin-off movie! 4.5/5
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Jan 27, 2007 10:54
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This was one of the most balls to the wall action movies I have ever seen. It was extremely violent, bloody, and loud, and kicked more rear end than you could ever possibly hope for. I know I'll be seeing it many more times. 5/5
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Jan 27, 2007 20:42
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It's Snatch on crack. It's the shoot-out scene in Heat, only there's more bullets. It's just awesome. I have two gripes. One being the dialogue between Alicia Keys and her partner in crime. It was just so horrible that I felt everyone in the theater cringing. They just tried too hard to be like, "GUUURL, WE GHETTO AS HELL." Second, was it necessary to show the kid getting a boner in the guys face? Everything else was so good that it cancelled out any dislike I could possibly have for the film. I thought it was ballsy to cast Ryan Reynolds but he did an excellent job. Finally, the "Tremor Brothers" are my favorite trio ever. 5/5
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Jan 28, 2007 06:01
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I didn't expect a spectacular performance - nor did I want one. I wanted to watch a FUN AS HELL movie. And for me this flick delivered. 5/5
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Jan 28, 2007 07:19
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Out of all the characters in this movie the only interesting ones are Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck) and his friends, and Detective Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and his partner (Ray Liotta). Theres a problem with this seeing as Dupree and his friends get killed except for Martin Henderson about 25 minutes into the movie. The rest of the characters are loving cartoons and you don't care what happens to them. Im all for suspension of disbelief but when i saw one of the hitmen take off a mask he used to disguise himself as a black man and All the times the hitmen get away in the end. Messner letting Alicia Keys and Common go, Diego surviving getting shot a million times, The Tremor brother getting off holding an fbi badge and crying, and the mask guy taking off his mask and crying and telling the fbi agents he went the other way right after he shot someone in a room full of fbi agents. i couldn't help but call bullshit. Also the marketing for the movie is very misleading having Jason Bateman's name in the trailer but getting about 5 minutes of screen time. If you saw the teaser trailer you saw about 50% of his screen time. This movie sucks the production values are nice but theres no substance its really forgetable. 2.5/5.5
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Jan 29, 2007 01:15
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I went in expecting an action comedy, and got a violently boring-as-hell movie, with a lovely plot, by a director who apparently wishes he was Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie. This movie sucked out loud. 1.5/5
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Jan 29, 2007 18:57
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I really enjoyed how over the top it is. The middle of the movie is where the bulk of the action is, and its balls-to-the-wall, to be sure. I was a bit dissapointed in the ending, as I had hoped for an exciting finale instead of a lot of dialogue. Overall: 4/5
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Jan 29, 2007 20:54
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Pretty crappy. The movie was trying so hard to come at you from so many angles, the end result was a mess. Too many characters in a story that couldn't seem to decide if it was serious or not. And then there's the absolutely loving retarded ending, which makes the situation needlessly complex long after the point where complexity could have added anything, and worse yet, invalidates the entire premise of the movie. Now, being an action movie, a ridiculous plot is never a real issue, but the plot actually has to serve a purpose. In Smokin' Aces, it just gets in the way and drags down what is already not much of a film experience. 1/5. Would have been 0/5 had it not been for a few funny scenes. deadEd fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 31, 2007 |
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Jan 31, 2007 10:11
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This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I'm not sure if it started out as a gritty crime-drama, or maybe an action-comedy-buddy flick, but whatever it was originally, clearly the writer died of shame, and they let the ADD copy-boy finish the script with chainsaws and 50cal. 0/5
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Feb 3, 2007 05:21
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An incredibly unfocused film. Trying to sell its self as an action-comedy in the beginning and trying disparity to transform in the last 15mins towards a serious crime-drama. When it was all said in done, 95% of the movie I felt was completely pointless and served no purpose other then fill a couple trailers with enough pictures and sounds to attract an audience ready for some serious-rear end-kickin'-balls-to-the-wall-shoot'em-up-craziness only to be short changed with a relatively small amount sup-bar action and in place an incoherent plot that tries way to hard to be smarter then it is with an "I bet you didn’t see this coming" ending. Which we of course didn’t see it coming because it was completely shoehorded in essentially negating all that had been said and done so far in the movie Although the very few comedic and action elements actually found in the movie were pretty decent and probably the only up point of the film that was trying to sell itself as a complete madness of action and shoot'em up violence that fell incredibly short of the goal. If your going to his movie expending Die Hard on speed, prepare to be disappointed. Ups: 3% of the movie that actually had some action and comedy in it. the whole scene with Ben Affleck’s crew meeting the Tremor Brothers was about awesome Downs: the rest of it Score: an incredibly generous 2/5 Russell_Nash fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Feb 11, 2007 |
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Feb 11, 2007 01:29
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This movie was an awful mess of style over substance. It looks like the director took all his queues from other stylistically driven films and tried to add them to his own but without any meat behind it all. The first third of the film was simply nothing but exposition, to the point that 30 minutes into it they were still introducing new characters (complete with the stylistic freeze frame and name written on the screen.) This was all done in the "voice over of one character introduces the other characters by explaining the plot to his team." which is a really lazy plot device, and it continued for a good 30 minutes to the point where most people were utterly confused and just wanted the actual movie to begin. The worst thing is that they ended the film with the exact same exposition technique which reveals the 'plot twist' rather haphazardly and makes the point of the rest of the film rather moot. This movie really could have done with culling the amount of characters. It reminds me of "Rat Race" but with assassins, with the mass of characters are all fighting to get to the one goal, except in that film it actually worked since it was a slapstick comedy. The film also didn't seem to find a common ground between it's gritty action flick style and over the top fantasy style. One one hand you had the super serious FBI, the mafia and professional assasins, and on the other you had crazy Road Warrior esque villans who use chainsaws and have mohawks disguising themselves as hotel security. To it's credit though, the film did have some fantastic acting and special effects. Cut out half the plot and characters to make it more into a campy summer action flick, and this film could have been great fun. For the moment though, it's a action flick which seems to take itself entirely too seriously and is trying for something deeper than it can actually put across. 1.5/5
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Feb 14, 2007 04:42
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I had a great time watching this movie last week. The cast of characters makes this movie. The characters are portrayed in a way that makes you care about them even though they have only been on the screen for a few minutes. The buildup to action is fun and hardly a second is wasted. This is what a modern action movie is. 5/5
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Feb 15, 2007 04:38
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I truly did not enjoy this movie at all. My original thoughts of the movie were "wow this is kinda cool... like a new Ocean's 11". That quickly was replaced by "what the hell is this movie trying to be?" It goes through moments of drama, non-stopped and non-progressing rising action for a full hour, lots of emo card flicking, and then a sappy love story where a lesbian gets shot to pieces. My biggest complaint is the incredible lack of depth to the characters. They all have a gimmick and the gimmick is shallow and only a few are entertaining. It had some genuine laughs and a couple interesting (couple as in 2) characters. So it earned a full one star from me. 1/5 (poor)
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Feb 16, 2007 03:01
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This film can only be described as a guilty pleasure. No one will ever say, "Smokin' Aces is my favorite film!", but you can certainly say it's one of the most fun films out there. I went into the theater expecting an anime style crime drama. That's what this is. Over the top, impossible characters litter the movie's landscape. There is no way in real life any of the people exist, there is no way the FBI would fail on so many levels and let these guys get into the hotel, but it sure is cool watching it happen. Buddy "Aces" Israel starts informing the FBI on the dealings of the last vestige of the organized crime syndacate, so they put out a 1 million dollar contract for his life. Bizzare hitmen start to gather in Tahoe to try and claim the reward. It's not trying to be smart, and I could care less about the plot. The director isn't trying to be Guy Ritchie, by any means. It flows like a live action anime, and you've got to think of it as this to suspend reality long enough to watch it. It's fun, gory, and completely ridiculous. Plus, it's got chainsaws. I loved it. 4.5/5.5
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Feb 16, 2007 23:45
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The first 15 minutes are used to establish the plot, but fail completely due to poor writing and direction. The FBI scenes and mafia scenes are completely unnecessary and are not consistent with the feel or pacing of the rest of the movie. After that, we get the typical "crew assembly" montage that most heist movies tend to do. The only interesting character to me was Alicia Keys, who has great screen presence, but that's ruined by her pairing with a Queen Latifa wannabe handler, and another stereotypical black girl who's only interesting attribute is that she's probably in gay love with Alicia's character. The plot tries to take twists and turns, but the intended effect of each revelation is so obvious it defeats itself. Buddy "Aces" Israel has some cool scenes, particularly the one where he puts that guy's eye out with a playing card, but he's underutilized. I like Jason Bateman, but he was trying way to hard to get a laugh. What the movie boils down to is a typical heist movie (except its about killing someone) with all the standard fixing, violence elevated to a level that attempts to shock you, and random comedy. That might sound pretty good on paper, but on the screen it was a mess. For every ten entertaining minutes, there's ten that you don't need to see or have seen before done better. Surprisingly, the only scene worth paying for involves Ben Affleck, more specifically his corpse but you'll be seeing it on Youtube for free eventually. My suggestion is to skip this one, and don't be fooled by the random cool scenes you might find on the web. 2/5
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Feb 20, 2007 04:43
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This movie was pretty lovely, albiet fun to watch. It says a lot about the movie on a whole that they essentially sacrifice any sort of character development at all in favour of never being sure who's going to get capped. If that tradeoff is your cup of tea you'll love this film. 2/5 edit: also I got the impression after watching it that the director really likes television. ADD plot, and actors from entourage, carnivale, arrested development.. uhh, two guys and a pizza place, I guess. The Walrus fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Feb 20, 2007 |
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Feb 20, 2007 20:24
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The whole problem was they couldn't decide how serious or zany the movie was going to be. I would accept all unbelievable shootouts and gratuitous violence (especially from the Tremor brothers and the sniper chick), but it was more serious. I would accept all serious action, but there was too much off-the wall action. Make up your mind! 2.5/5
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Feb 22, 2007 03:41
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Great actors, big budget, flashy cinematography... has to be great, right? Wrong. I wanted to like this film but after 30 minutes I realized just what great films Pulp Fiction and Snatch are and what a misfire this one was. Sure, there were some great characters, especially the Tremor brothers and the other bounty hunters... the Barrett .50 cal was nice too... but drat. Why'd the film suck so much? Maybe they just tried too hard. Over-stylized hyper-violent wannabe cool. Nothing more than a 3.... and I'm feeling generous today.
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Mar 3, 2007 23:10
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Movie is in my top 3 action movies all time, it was awesome. From the kid with the patch to the tremor brothers, to the face changer guy. I dunno, when i saw the commercial the first time i thought to mysef, wow this is going to be nothing but a big gun fight. I mean they even say that IN the trailer "You're going to pour boxes of bullets into Isreal". I saw that and i was sold, then i saw the cast and it became a must see. Anytime something happened that i thought was unbelievable or weak, i just remembered "This is supposed to be mindless.". I honestly loved the poo poo out of this movie, and it was even better the second time(i went after i saw the commercial where they were like the NY Times says BLAM BLAM etc...". Honestly i don't know what people wanted from this, how can anyone honestly say they saw the commercial with Spiderbait doing blackbetty and a guy in a mohawk running out of an elevator and said to themselves "You know what, i bet the story in this movie is incredible, this will be in the running for movie of the year cause it will be so deep". Score: 5/5 Pros: More action then Running Scared and Domino combined, in fact more of everything those 2 movies did right, and less of what they did wrong Cons: The ending would have been better had it been different IE pull the plugs and escape the hospital, escaping like everyone else leaving the badge behind Bottomline: Seriously see this movie if you are looking for incredibly crazy action sequences and great one liners, any other reason would be just foolish on your part
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Mar 4, 2007 09:50
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Omygod, this movie attempted to engage the viewer through a Tarrantino-like blend of gore and humor... but failed.
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Mar 8, 2007 07:49
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I must have been in the wrong frame of mind when watching this one. People are calling it funny and I was not laughing all that much. I found it to be a horribly contrived movie. This movie was a mishmash of immature fantasy 'always wanted to see that' 'they went there' sort of scenes with terrible characters. I thought this movie was completely uninspired. I guess I went into this with much different expectations.
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Mar 13, 2007 15:12
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I thought it was great and did a pretty good job of being funny and somewhat dramatic, but the overly serious ending was far too different in tone and pacing than the rest of the movie, and sort of ends on a weak note. The twist isn't terribly interesting either, but then most of the movie is ridiculously style-over-substance so that's not much of a complaint. Overall I thought most of the characters were great (except the ADD kid with the boner, which wasn't really funny and just made me wish to get back to skinheads with chainsaws) and throwing all of these ridiculous cliches together (hard-nosed FBI agents, master of disguise, crazy skinhead trio, stupid German, deadly latin assassin, three mercenary buddies, pathetic lawyers, blaxploitation chick duo, drug-addled burn-out, gangsters, mafiosos, etc.) just gets you such a fun, over-the-top movie that it's hard not to like. 3.5/5, taking off a little for the weak ending with a weak twist and annoying "funny" ADD kid
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May 27, 2007 08:41
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This is easily one of the worst films I've ever had the misfortune to endure. I'd rather eat my own penis than be subjected to this shitfest again. There are no redeeming features. The plot, the characters, the cinematography, the music, the editing; equally worthless. The people responsible for this film should be forever forbidden from having anything to do with the film industry. 0/5
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May 30, 2007 03:15
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Fun, dumb action movie where you can turn your brain off and just be entertained. If you went into this expecting a great cinematic masterpiece, but knowing it starred Ben Afflec, Ryan Reynolds and Alicia Keyes, you should really lower your expectations. 3.5/5
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Jun 3, 2007 16:11
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Like others I'm not sure what the film was trying to be. I'm all for off the wall silliness but it was offset by the amount of 'serious' scenes that didn't seem like they were satire or tongue in cheek references to the genre. The acting was fairly good, and Ryan Reynolds actually suprised me. He's not an oscar shoe-in or anything but I am looking foward to seeing what else he can do. I thought the scene at the end was really good, but unfortunately, like most of the scenes it didn't seem to belong in this film. Instead of working on a script and throwing in cool ideas it's like the writer/director had a bunch of 'cool' ideas and tried to write a script to accomodate them all. Honestly if it wasn't for Clint Mansell's score, I would've forgotten about this movie days after viewing it. 2/5
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Jun 6, 2007 14:56
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This film was boring. The violence was sub-par, the acting was atrocious, and this movie was plagued by the "Trailer makes it seem like a movie that it is not." Also, Ryan Reynolds SHOULD NEVER play serious roles. This movie was trying to be so many things it wasn't, and, unlike the movies it wanted to emulate (Snatch), none of the characters were memorable. In the end, I wanted my rental money back. 1.5/5
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Jun 7, 2007 23:55
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Ridiculously bad movie. The first half of the movie is boring enough to induce a coma, and none of the actors except Piven and Reynolds are doing anything but phoning it in. I watched this because of the general love for it I saw on the internet, and this'll be the last time I take the internet's word for anything. Should have known better. Even when the movie finally gets to the action, it's subpar at best. The gunfights are boring and poorly shot, and even the Tremors, for whom everyone seemed the most excited, got maybe two minutes of screen time, and most of that in slow motion. The movie teased them, and teased them, and finally they ran out of the elevator, and ... cut to that horrifyingly stupid side-plot with the fella who had his fingers cut off. Poor pacing, poor cinematography, poor acting, poor editing, laughably bad plot (and I never mind that in a good stupid action movie, which this was decidedly not) ... there was honestly nothing good about this flick, except perhaps for the aforementioned Piven, Reynolds, and perhaps Ben Affleck's moustache. Awful. RATING: 1/5 PROS: Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck's moustache CONS: Everything else.
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Jun 11, 2007 18:17
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Well it had it's funny and awesome moments, for example, the smoking elevator moving up to the penthouse, the doors opening and that crazy skinhead looking guy chargng out, or the one liner type things like "oh gently caress it" or "jizz. eastern european jizz." But still, I can't get around the plot having GAPING HOLES and making NO loving SENSE. For example, at the end where the plug of Israel's life support is pulled, why the hell did he die? He hadn't done enough coke to do more than make him pass out, Lazlo Soot, oddly enough, hadn't done anything to him, and his heart hadn't yet been removed. Also why did they have to weave this elaborate web of lies as opposed to just using a donor's heart? And why didn't Lazlo Soot come back to finish Israel off? I'm surprised he couldn't find out a way to get to him when he escaped from the swat team. And why doesn't it give any sense of closure- at least give us a clue as to the fate of some of the asassins! As I already mentioned, we have know idea about Lazlo. Did Georgia Sykes die from getting shot twice? Or did Sir Ivy get her to the hospital in time? Why didn't Sharice Watters go to Georgia as soon as she saw her, as opposed to just sitting there until the feds come and gun her down? So, yeah, this leaves a lot to be desired. 2/5
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Jun 11, 2007 19:52
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IMDB has this down as a comedy/action flick, which confused me. There is almost NO comedy in this movie, unless you find racial stereotypes and cursing to be hilarious. The Kung Fu Ritalin kid was worth a WTF giggle though. This is an action movie, no bones about it. There's a plot too, and it's fairly well told, with at least one, or maybe two twists you may not see coming. Too bad the plot is overwhelmed by by cartoonish characters. Ryan Reynolds is actually kinda good in this. Whether this is going to be a regular thing from him remains to be seen. I find I really just find myself wanting to hate him as an actor, and label him as one of those annoying Hollywood sidekick guys, who sticks around on name value alone, when their name HAS no value. I might reconsider that train of thought if he does well in a few more movies. I saw this on DVD where we got to check out the "Cowboy Ending". In this alternate ending, Reynolds' character feeds about 10 bullets into Aces and his father in the hopsital instead. Interesting. Pros: Ryan Reynolds, of all people. Violence! Cons: Only comedy comes from the freakshow hitmen and their nuances, and even then, not really. A few too many eye-raising "Why is he/she doing that? That doesn't make sense..." moments, and not from characters from whom you'd expect it, either. Worth a rental, if you're in the mood to watch a lot of people shoot at each other. Rating 2.5/5
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Jun 13, 2007 16:13
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Tragically hip, with little content. Characters are laughably underdeveloped and uninteresting, not to mention completely unmemorable. The most interesting part to watch was the occasional card tricks, everything else is just recycled from similar hip action comedies. Go watch Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels to see what this movie was trying to be. 2/5 Butt Cord fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jul 2, 2007 |
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Jul 2, 2007 21:02
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