Smokin Aces (7 out of 10)

Smokin Aces, starring a lot of peple, among them Ben Affleck, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, and Andy Garcia, is about a gangster/casino showman that turns snitch, and is going to rat about the Mafia to the FBI. The Mafia answers by contracting a number of assassins to take him out, to the winner go the spoils.

As you can see, it's a pretty basic plot, and unless there was a ton of action, you couldn't make too much of a movie out of this. And there ISN'T a lot of action, and instead, there is actually character development and substance, which absolutely shocked me. I was expecting something in the vein of Domino or Running Scared, ridiculous, far-fetched, but still a bit fun, action movies. However, with Smokin Aces, the only action is with the end setpiece, and instead, the film builds off of character interaction and behavior.

I never thought I'd say in a cast of this size that Ryan Reynolds would have the best performance, but indeed he does. Everyone else is pretty good, Chris Pine is superb as the main Tremor Brother. Alicia Keys is alright until the end, when that falls apart. Andy Garcia is made to do a terrible Southern accent and it really kills his character. For the first part of the movie, Jeremy Piven is obviously channelling his Ari Gold character from Entourage, but eventually he plays someone with a bit more heart later.

This movie is incredibly unpredictable, and there is no guessing what is going to happen next. It also has it's fair share of greatly shot scenes, one of my faves being Ray Liotta in an elevator, I won't say anything more.

So, with all these goodness, why only a 7? Well, the "twist" ending. At the end, the director, Joe Carnahan, decides to toss out a few quick twists. They were absurdly out of place, and there was no point. They didn't add anything to the movie, but rather detracted from it. The movie goes through the typical playback of scenes where the end was hinted at, and that's getting old also. Ryan Reynolds' saves the train from going all the way off the tracks with a very good end sequence to close the movie.

Overall, this was a very fun movie that I liked for the characters and the unpredictability. I really want to see it again.