Normally, January is a movie month to not be real excited about. Traditionally, it's the month where studios dump the movies that were not big enough for the holiday season, or not good enough for awards season, which is why we end up watching stuff like Happily N'ever After and Code Name: The Cleaner. Every now and then, though, a good movie does get released in January, though it's rare that they are as highly anticipated as Smokin' Aces, the new movie by Narc-director Joe Carnahan.
Originally, Carnahan's follow up to Narc was going to be Mission Impossible 3, but after he bailed out of that movie, he decided to do this adrenaline fuelled thriller instead. It was an idea he had been kicking around already before Narc had come out, and the success of that movie made him go back to his high energy screenplay and finish it. The script got a very excited reception from everybody who read it, and actors were practically begging Carnahan to be involved in the movie. Which is why Smokin' Aces has such a great cast, with Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Justin Bateman and Ben Affleck just some of the great people involved with this movie.
Reading the plot of the movie, you realize that this can only mean one thing: total mayhem. The movie is about a sleazy Vegas-magician named Buddy Israel (Piven). This man has been involved with one of the biggest crime organisations in America, but he wants out. The FBI offers him protection in return for Israel naming names, and when word comes out about this deal, the shit hits the fan. The crime boss behind Israel's old organisation wants him dead, offering a cool $ 1 million to the person bringing him Israel's heart. A bail bondsman wants Israel before he gets killed or taken in by the FBI, because he is still owed a substantial sum of money. And the FBI just wants to protect Israel from all the insane killers going after him in his hotel in Vegas.
If you've seen the trailer, you will know that Smokin' Aces is something else. Besides the leading actors, there is a huge cast of other interesting characters, played by people like Common, Peter Berg and Alicia Keys, going after each other with one of the biggest weapons arsenals ever seen in a movie outside the war-genre (you know what, scratch that, one of the biggest arsenals seen in any movie, period!). But it's not just the shooting and outrageous characters that will make this picture stand out, since Carnahan can be trusted to give his picture more substance than just being eye candy. Or, as Carnahan himself said in an interview with IGN: "Listen, what I was really gunning for, what I wanted is that you cared about these people and that you have to go in caring and you have to think in this film. You can't just turn it off and be, "Whatever, just entertain me." The movie won't function. You'll be bored stiff if you're not trying to keep up with it. And I don't know what happened to those movies where we did that. We've just dumbed this audience down to the point where they're like, "Oh, I don't give a [expletive]." I hope it's not that way, know what I mean?"
Check out Joe Carnahan's Smokin Aces Blog here.
Or the official website, here.
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