Runtime: 108 minutes
Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Quite the cast of familiar faces, including Ray Liotta (RIP)
From: Universal/Studio Canal/Relativity Media
RIP Ray Liotta
Even if I’ve only seen a few of Ray’s movies in my lifetime, hearing of his passing still made me sad. Goodfellas has been one of my all-time favorites for a long while now and he as the lead was one of the reasons why. Smoking Aces is a film I saw theatrically and I subsequently revisited shortly thereafter but the last viewing was probably 15 years ago. Before last night it was only faintly remembered; getting to rent a 4K stream was a treat.
At the time I did think this but now it is even more obvious how this movie bit hard on Guy Ritchie, specifically early in his career. While this is no Snatch and Lord does it ever try hard, it was still fine overall. A Las Vegas act named Buddy “Aces” Israel (the character’s a real jerk so is it a surprise that he was played by Jeremy Piven?) is pals with the Mob but he’s going to spill the beans on them to the Feds so a hit is going to be placed on him and a cavalcade of wacky characters are looking to cash that paycheck.
What a cast this has: Liotta, Piven, Ryan Reynolds before he became a caricature, Andy Garcia, Common, Ben Affleck, pre-fame Chris Pine, Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson, Jason Bateman, Curtis Armstrong, Alex Rocco, Matthew Fox, Joel Edgerton… that did help elevate this material. At times the movie was grating (somehow I had forgotten how HORRIBLE the minor character of 12 year old boy Warren was. Suddenly the memories came flooding back and with a tiny amount of screentime that ADHD character left the worst kind of impression as it was over the top in a dumb way) but this dark comedy still was entertaining overall.
There was enough carnage, shootouts, funny comments, various twists, and sheer chutzpah for me to say that it was not a mistake to revisit this cartoony extravaganza.
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