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Trailer Stash
The new trailer for Smokin' Aces deconstructed.
By Sara Brady
Icon by Lisa Martin
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I'm mystified by the difference between the teaser and theatrical trailers for Narc director Joe Carnahan's Jan. 26 release Smokin' Aces, which appears to be one of those hot-guys-hang-around-shooting-the-shit-and-then-actually-shoot-some-shit movies that happens every couple of years, like Suicide Kings and Boondock Saints. Which begs the question, why is Sean Patrick Flanery not in Smokin' Aces? He needs to work more.
Anyway, the teaser opens with sort of a roll call: Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, and a shaggily unrecognizable Martin Henderson show up for Jason Bateman to give them the rundown on Buddy Israel, a magician and mob informant played, sweatily, by Jeremy Piven, who now has a contract on his head. Andy Garcia would like to keep Israel alive, it appears. Oh, and there's Ryan Reynolds, wearing his Serious Facial Hair (go compare Blade: Trinity to Just Friends if you don't believe me).
The trailer gets all fast and shouty for a moment until we segue to a close-up on a tattooed thug drawing on his upper lip with a permanent marker while ironic elevator music plays. Because huffing is the hallmark of a really threatening criminal? There is more fast 'n' shouty, as we see Reynolds asking Ray Liotta what he's going to do. Ray tells Ryan he's going to get to Israel before "they" do, and it doesn't really look like Buddy's doing his part to stay alive, what with sprawling unconscious on his bathroom floor and all. If there's one thing TV procedurals have taught us, it's that the unconscious are much easier to kidnap.
We flash through the cast's name cards, including a particularly unappetizing shot of Jason Bateman in his knickers, and just about every single person has a gun. It's like a recruiting ad for the Glock-of-the-Month club. And now everyone shoots their guns, just in case the audience was wondering if all the firepower was just a tease. And then the elevator music is back as Alicia Keys stares down the three tattooed huffers, all named Tremor according to IMDb, and all shirtless in an elevator. That's, uh, unexpected from Working Title, home of Bridget Jones, Richard Curtis, and Mr. Bean.
And now, the full trailer, which, I warn you in advance, looks like it's from a completely different movie. We open in a surveillance van as the contract on Buddy Israel is announced. Buddy is in Lake Tahoe, in his penthouse full of ladies, which I believe is in all of Piven's contracts these days. Apparently there are seven hitmen, which may or may not include Alicia Keys, depending on how she likes her pronouns these days, and their mission is... not to kill Buddy Israel? I found the teaser much less immediately confusing.
Ray repeats that line about getting to Israel first, and I'm sure there's a "next year in Jerusalem" joke somewhere in this trailer. Now Taraji P. Henson, who some of you may remember from her hollering at last year's Oscars, is giggling over her giant gun. I am not at all sure in the ensuing montage who is supposed to be a good guy, a bad guy, or even a guy with lines. Then one of the Tremors breaks out a chainsaw, which you really do not want the guy on fumes doing.
This trailer is on the whole about seventy thousand percent less coherent than the teaser, and I blame the lack of structure on the fact that Ben Affleck, despite being first in the credit box (although that may just be alphabetical) does not appear once. Neither, I think, does Bateman, or Berg, or, like, half of the named cast from the teaser.
The teaser trailer had me mildly interested, if only to see if this was perhaps a cross between Ocean's Eleven and Suicide Kings. The theatrical version, though, makes me think someone took one too many hits off his Sharpies. Ack.
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