Smokin' Aces

Joe Carnahan's flashy, splashy, blood-drenched crime muddle isn't so much a story as a premise. Vegas showman and wannabe wiseguy Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven) turns informant and snorts himself into a coked-up haze while an improbably colorful collection of assassins (including foxy sistah-act team Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson and master of disguise Nestor Carbonell) race government agents Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds (and each other) to get the mob bounty on his head. All the necessary information is front-loaded in prologue of rapid-fire exposition and the rest is all spectacular displays of carnage as the competing killers collide in between bouts of sub-Tarantino dialogue. It's kind of fun as a purely abstract exercise in cinematic flair but it doesn't add up to anything more than a lot of empty flash and stylistic showing-off. Ben Affleck has a small role as a bail bondsman, Jason Bateman is hilarious as a crooked lawyer, and Peter Berg, Common, and Andy Garcia co-star. The alternate ending advertised in the supplements feels more like an empty gesture.