PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 1/26/07)

After impressing moviegoers and critics four years ago with his cop drama Narc, writer/director Joe Carnahan returns with Smokin' Aces, a runaway freight train of a movie that's as chaotic and hyper-stylized as Narc was focused and low-key. Drawing on a number of sources — most notably Danny Boyle, the Coen Brothers, and a splash of Tarantino — Carnahan sets himself up as the ringmaster of a circus filled with violent freaks. His enthusiasm is impressive, it's just a shame it's not in service of a better film.

Click here to read an interview with Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan.

Smokin' Aces runs into trouble early on, as Carnahan makes the audience endure a solid half-hour of overwritten exposition before getting down to business. Here's the short version: faced with the prospect of doing years of hard time, professional magician and amateur mobster Buddy Israel (Jeremy Piven) has chosen to turn state's evidence. Naturally, this decision angers his former mob associates, who retaliate by placing a sizeable bounty on his head. News of the hit quickly reaches the criminal underworld and professional assassins of all shapes and sizes make their way to the Lake Tahoe hotel where Israel is being sequestered. The colorful cast of killers includes a trio of redneck psychos known as the Tremor Brothers (Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Maury Sterling), an Eastern European disguise expert named Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan), best friends — and possible lovers — Sharice and Georgia (Taraji P. Henson and Alicia Keys) and dunderheaded crooks Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), Pete Deeks (Peter Berg) and Hollis Elmore (Martin Henderson). Protecting Israel are two grizzled Feds (played by Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds) who soon learn that there's more to this case than meets the eye.

By the time Carnahan gets around to this ridiculous plot twist, many viewers will have already checked out. It's not the cartoonish ultraviolence or convoluted narrative that make Smokin' Aces so off-putting, it's the film's lack of discipline. From the beginning, Carnahan purposely avoids establishing a consistent tone and style. While this initially lends the film an air of unpredictability, it also makes it difficult for the audience to figure out whether the director is having a laugh or actually means for us to take this stuff seriously. This becomes a problem in the second half when Carnahan pushes the story in a less comic direction, climaxing in a final scene that seems to be aiming for high drama but instead comes across as high camp. (It doesn't help that the director taps Reynolds to carry the emotional weight of this scene, which is a little like asking Daniel Day Lewis to tell a dick joke.)

To be fair, Smokin' Aces isn't a complete train wreck. Carnahan stages a handful of strong action set-pieces, most notably a close-quarters elevator shoot-out involving Liotta and Flanagan, that are a blast to watch. And even though Reynolds can't shed his Van Wilder screen persona, it's fun seeing other actors like Affleck and Matthew Fox (who contributes a quick cameo) cast successfully against type. But the movie belongs to Piven, who plays Israel like Ari Gold gone to seed. No matter how out-of-control Buddy gets — and he's pretty unhinged by the time the credits roll — Piven's performance possesses the kind of internal consistency that the rest of the film sorely lacks.

— Ethan Alter