Review of Snake Eyes (1998) by Thomas C — 01 Oct 2017

Terrific Brian De Palma thriller covers familiar territory for the director; political assassination, conspiracies, dirty cops, females in disguise, suspense set pieces, split screens, POV shots, long tracking shots, and so on and so forth.

However, I'm a sucker for De Palma's style and although he's pretty much mining his previous work, it's still far better made than most other directors, creating terrific suspense and doing it with terrific visual flair.

David Koepp, who wrote De Palma's last great film, "Carlito's Way," wrote this film based upon a story by he and De Palma. The story has shady Atlantic City police detective Nicholas Cage trying to figure out who's behind the murder of a politician at a heavyweight boxing championship that's taking place in the middle of a hurricane.

Is it the head of security, Gary Sinise, the sleazy promoter, John Heard, the femme fatale, the terrific and criminally underused Carla Gugino, or maybe even the champ, Stan Shaw? Everyone has something to hide.

It's a fun rogues gallery of characters in a serpentine plot, but it's really De Palma's directorial flourishes, the best of which is as a wildly long open shot. You also get Luis Guzmán, Kevin Dunn, and Mike Starr in supporting roles, so it's hard to see how this film can go far wrong.

Although it's no "Blow Out," it's a must see for De Palma fans!