Review of Smokin' Aces (2006) by Breanna W — 18 Mar 2010

This movie is fun and at least keeps the brain entertained with a storyline that is all over the map. However, that part has been tried successfully and mostly unsuccessfully by many (see Domino). But this movie is also very well produced in terms of the visual components. There is no modern movie at the technically beautiful level of pure visual id like Fight Club, but this one is firmly on the next level below. It is refreshing since the story really is an exercise of a 2 paragraph word puzzle that is expanded to a 90 minute movie because of characters, characters and more colorful characters.

And for this movie, it works. I would put it more in the category of Natural Born Killers in that it is really aims for the visual flare. While NBK goes for the visual experimentation, this movie goes down the storyline experimentation and tries to figure out how they can fit that in with a high BPM editing and visual pace. What kills this movie is that it tries so hard to cram in exposition (albeit 10 second bits) to explain and try to trick people one way or the other, when they could have just let it go. See Time and Tide, and that movie is manic, chaotic, and doesn?t care if you really follow the story ? which at times, just abandons trying to tell it. This movie is worth it. It aims high and delivers at most targets.