Review of Snake Eyes (1998) by Arun J — 16 Dec 2011

If Midsomer Murders was transplanted to Atlantic City and Nicholas Cage replace John Nettles then it might look something like Snake Eyes......only better.

This is one of those pulpy thrillers that Hollywood was keen on pumping out at one time before it went down the grittier, Liam Neeson route. It's your kind of airport paperback of a movie.

Cage is a police man with few morals who gets in over his head when a US senator is assassinated during a boxing match. Cage then feels the need to get himself heavily involved to try and deflect blame from his army pal Gary Sinese who should have been keeping an eye on stuff, and find the real culprit.

Despite Cage being his usual annoying self (he's in the wild man, shouty mode in this movie, rather than his slightly stoned, state of bewilderment role), the story starts out well enough. There's enough sign posts and information fed to the audience to make us begin to think we can try to figure it out. About half way through the glaringly obvious twists start to be rolled out to the amazement of no one with half a brain. One of the conspirators might as well be walking around with "I'm really the baddie" tattooed on their forehead.

From there on, the film loses its way before limping to a finish which is weak at best. The bad guys motives don't really make you believe that anyone would care this much about it and we've stopped caring about Cage a long time ago.

The film uses some neat, character perspective flash backs to fill in gaps in the story which is a staple of most pulp mystery stories but again, these peter out in the second half.

The style of presentation and preposterousness of the story does put one in mind of out favourite ITV rural slaughter fest but Snake Eyes never even approaches the enjoyment that the adventures of Barnaby does.

No substance, little style and short on the entertainment value.