(May Contain Spoilers)
I was not a fan of this movie! I felt that it was a pointless film, which felt like a rip off of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000). The storyline was very unclear and some of the acting, despite a promising cast, was mediocre! It was particularly frustrating when trying to get a grip on the plot, the music was blaring out loud and the actors who were speaking, Ben Affleck in particular, were quiet and mumbling; I had to rewind five times and gave up trying to hear what he said!
Smokin' Aces follows several groups of hitmen who try to kill Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven) and retrieve the bounty, which has been placed by a mob of gangsters. Buddy, a Las Vegas magician and gangster wannabe, begins to make deals with local mobsters, which is pushed to the limit when Buddy's henchmen kill someone (it was unclear who), therefore Buddy goes to the cops and makes a deal with the feds to testify against his cronies in return for immunity from prosecution.
It follows that, FBI agent Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) travels to collect Buddy from his penthouse hotel room, but he is not the only one who has heard about the whereabouts of Buddy. With a million-dollar hit out against Buddy, hitmen come out of the woodwork to try and take down Buddy, which results in a shoot-out in the hotel penthouse platform. In the meantime it is revealed that FBI agent Freeman Heller (Mike Falkow) who went undercover in the mob and later (after a lot of plastic surgery) became Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin). The ending shows that the FBI who have figured this out try to keep him alive and Sparazza, now very old and with a heart condition, needs a heart transplant and Buddy is his illegitimate son, which was revealed in a brief flash back! After hearing that the FBI plan to keep Sparazza alive so that they can gain knowledge on the mobster’s underground workings, Messner goes into the pop-up surgery and pulls the plug on both Buddy and Sparazza.
I was very disappointed by this movie, it felt like the storyline got lost in the action and the sudden flash backs at the end tried to try up some sort of plot. The only proper action scene was on the landing to Buddy's penthouse, so no big car chases or high action fight sequences. A film that falls flat, little action and convoluted storyline. Not worth the watch.
Available Now on Netflix
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