Smokin' Aces

Universal might have saved its money on critics' screenings of Smokin' Aces, starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia, for all the good the reviews will do the film. Jan Stuart in Newsday calls the movie "an exercise in excess gone over the top. It's so punch-drunk with antisocial behavior you don't know whether to laugh or write to the MPAA." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that it's "an awkward pelvic thrust of a movie that wishes it knew more cool moves than it actually does." Then there's A.O. Scott's review in the New York Times which describes the movie as "a Viagra suppository for compulsive action fetishists and a movie that may not only be dumb in itself, but also the cause of dumbness in others." On the other hand, there's Bill Zwecker's review in the Chicago Sun-Times, who concludes: "This nonstop, brutal thriller, with a nice twist at the end, is a winner all the way." And Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post wraps up his review this way: "All in all, another thoroughly enjoyable step on the road to damnation."

detective thriller characters, played straight, really do not splice well with the surreal shock of a blue velvet... and this movie is clumsily divided between the two genres...affleck and garcia sleepwalk through equally undemanding parts...nice to see ryan reynolds again...am i imagining a reprise of the cop used in cop/elevator scene of silence of the lambs, in a second cop/elevator scene?