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Let me begin by saying that my overview of the film would be that it’s one that is extremely flawed, and mildly entertaining rather than the exciting amalgamation of hilarity and carnage that myself, and I’m sure many others, were hoping for.
The basic set up, as I’m sure many of you know, is that a loser magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel has turned informant against the Mob (who are actually referred to as “La Cosa Nostra”, their real name, which is a rarity in film), and so the leader of the mob places a million dollar bounty on his head. And so we have a fleet of money-hungry assassins attempting to get to Israel, kill him, and remove his heart, as the mob leader rather strangely requested, although this is important later.
The film begins with a wire-tap operation going down, with FBI agents Messner and Carruthers (played with gusto respectively by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) discovering the impending hit going down on Israel. Herein lies one of my main gripes about the film – the first half an hour is really a lot of build-up. We find out what’s going on, we meet the assassins, but at the end of the day, I was just chomping at the bit to see as much mayhem on the screen as possible as soon as possible. This wasn’t a film I was particularly expecting to be attempting to weave intricate plot threads or even develop characters well at all, but the film tries to, and it’s just too much for a 108-minute film, especially when it steals so much of the screen time from the main attraction.
The assassins themselves are expectedly the treat of the film, though. We have The Tremor Brothers – three insane Nazis who love to run around wielding chainsaws and eating cheesits (which got one of the biggest laughs in my screening), a sly master of disguise, two lesbian lovers (one of whom is played by Alicia Keys with surprising competence), and a guy who wields a blade quite literally up his sleeve. There are also some other treats, such as Jason Bateman’s annoyingly short cameo as someone who I can’t even remember now as I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, the guy needed more screen-time as the herpes-infested, alcoholic loser that he was. Also, the biggest grin spread across my face when I realised that Aces’ lawyer was played by Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, a cameo role that was just, again, far too short.
This introduction of the assassins made it fairly clear to me early on that the script wasn’t particularly well-written. Sure, Garcia and Liotta had some good one-liners thrown at them occasionally, but by and large it’s just irritating sounding and detracts from the film somewhat. Also, I found some of the dialogue was practically inaudible due to the volume of the soundtrack. If I ever rent this on DVD, I think I’ll have to display the subs for a fair portion of it. Or maybe my cinema was just messing around with the print, I don’t know.
I hate to plumb these depths, but damn, Alicia Keys was smokin’ (no pun intended) in this film. She just oozed sexiness, and needless to say Common is one lucky fella getting the screen-time he does with her.
Back to the film – once the assassins begin arriving at the hotel, we diverge into yet more build-up as the assassins prepare for their various hits. During this, however, there is one rather marvelous, yet again very short scene where Ray Liotta attempts to subdue one of the assassins in an elevator, resulting in a close-combat shootout. It’s all over far too quickly, and we’re quickly transported back to the dross that came before it. A few other fairly inconsequent hits are carried out, and it doesn’t really do much to compensate for the time being wasted when we could see so much a**e getting kicked.
It’s almost 75 minutes in before we even get to the main event that trailers heavily advertised, and that’s the massive hotel standoff with everyone still alive shooting the hell out of each other. It was extremely fun to watch, but lasted barely 10 minutes before it was over. I was hoping for a 20 or 30 minute gun-battle with bodies flailing all over the place, but alas, I was again disappointed. What we get is great, despite the rather frenetic editing style that goes along with it. I was also a little let-down by the lack of violence. I was literally expecting limbs flying all over the place, and blood painting the walls. Yes, we get people getting stabbed and shot, but it’s never gratuitous, other than perhaps one guy (who shall remain nameless) sitting on a chainsaw, which was pretty amusing.
Another irritation of mine was how much of the violence was off-screen or cut-away shots. This is rated 18 for a reason, and as such I don’t want the shot changing and the sound of gunshots being all we get – I want to see that person get shot to smithereens in an extremely violent and visceral manner, but alas, we’re disappointed. There’s this great bit where one of the Tremor Brothers slices a guy with a chainsaw, but again, it’s a wasted opportunity as the guy just falls to the floor – we don’t see a squib of blood fly out of him or him fall in half or even just writhe around a bit before dying. It’s all very rushed, and suffers greatly.
The film at about this point diverges again into an incredibly inane subplot, where one of Ben Affleck’s buddies who was left for dead managed to escape to a cabin in the woods, where he meets an ADD-afflicted child who hasn’t taken his Ritalin and insists on delivering karate chops to the air every two seconds he’s on screen. This was just irritating to watch, although meeting the kid’s grandmother was mildly amusing.
Where the film truly makes or breaks is in my opinion with the twist - you’ll either love this or hate it. I hated it, as it just seemed convoluted and pretty stupid. Also, it did seem rather confusing at first from a dialogue point of view. It was unnecessary, and almost as though Carnahan was trying to add meaning or intricacy to a film that really didn’t need it.
From here, the film then segues into the ending portion of the film, which I found to slightly redeem the film, but also cause further irritation in how open-ended it was. We have a character turn pretty much a 180 as he realises that everything was not as it seemed. Just as it seems as though Carnahan is going to end it on what would have literally made the film go out with a bang, we just cut to black and the film’s over, leaving us to wonder the fate of a certain character. I must say, though, that the score in the final 2 minutes of the film was excellent, and very well-directed. There was a serenity about it that really shined through, and if only Carnahan could have stayed this restrained when directing the rest of the film.
I really, really tried to enjoy this film, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really deliver where I hoped it would. The horrendously hyperactive editing style, fairly dire script at times and lack of gore just made this exceptionally disappointing. It did play the “all bets are off” card fairly well, though, in that there was a huge sense of unpredictability as to who would live and die by the end of it. Good guys get mowed down like flies, and a fairly high number of the baddies escape, which I found pretty refreshing, but it’s not enough to save a fundamentally flawed film. I mean, an Alicia Keys nude scene would’ve been nice in the least. It seems to be a case of myself personally having too high expectations, and Carnahan in this instance just not meeting them. I’d honestly leave this to a rental on a rainy Saturday night if I were you, guys.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
The basic set up, as I’m sure many of you know, is that a loser magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel has turned informant against the Mob (who are actually referred to as “La Cosa Nostra”, their real name, which is a rarity in film), and so the leader of the mob places a million dollar bounty on his head. And so we have a fleet of money-hungry assassins attempting to get to Israel, kill him, and remove his heart, as the mob leader rather strangely requested, although this is important later.
The film begins with a wire-tap operation going down, with FBI agents Messner and Carruthers (played with gusto respectively by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) discovering the impending hit going down on Israel. Herein lies one of my main gripes about the film – the first half an hour is really a lot of build-up. We find out what’s going on, we meet the assassins, but at the end of the day, I was just chomping at the bit to see as much mayhem on the screen as possible as soon as possible. This wasn’t a film I was particularly expecting to be attempting to weave intricate plot threads or even develop characters well at all, but the film tries to, and it’s just too much for a 108-minute film, especially when it steals so much of the screen time from the main attraction.
The assassins themselves are expectedly the treat of the film, though. We have The Tremor Brothers – three insane Nazis who love to run around wielding chainsaws and eating cheesits (which got one of the biggest laughs in my screening), a sly master of disguise, two lesbian lovers (one of whom is played by Alicia Keys with surprising competence), and a guy who wields a blade quite literally up his sleeve. There are also some other treats, such as Jason Bateman’s annoyingly short cameo as someone who I can’t even remember now as I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, the guy needed more screen-time as the herpes-infested, alcoholic loser that he was. Also, the biggest grin spread across my face when I realised that Aces’ lawyer was played by Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, a cameo role that was just, again, far too short.
This introduction of the assassins made it fairly clear to me early on that the script wasn’t particularly well-written. Sure, Garcia and Liotta had some good one-liners thrown at them occasionally, but by and large it’s just irritating sounding and detracts from the film somewhat. Also, I found some of the dialogue was practically inaudible due to the volume of the soundtrack. If I ever rent this on DVD, I think I’ll have to display the subs for a fair portion of it. Or maybe my cinema was just messing around with the print, I don’t know.
I hate to plumb these depths, but damn, Alicia Keys was smokin’ (no pun intended) in this film. She just oozed sexiness, and needless to say Common is one lucky fella getting the screen-time he does with her.
Back to the film – once the assassins begin arriving at the hotel, we diverge into yet more build-up as the assassins prepare for their various hits. During this, however, there is one rather marvelous, yet again very short scene where Ray Liotta attempts to subdue one of the assassins in an elevator, resulting in a close-combat shootout. It’s all over far too quickly, and we’re quickly transported back to the dross that came before it. A few other fairly inconsequent hits are carried out, and it doesn’t really do much to compensate for the time being wasted when we could see so much a**e getting kicked.
It’s almost 75 minutes in before we even get to the main event that trailers heavily advertised, and that’s the massive hotel standoff with everyone still alive shooting the hell out of each other. It was extremely fun to watch, but lasted barely 10 minutes before it was over. I was hoping for a 20 or 30 minute gun-battle with bodies flailing all over the place, but alas, I was again disappointed. What we get is great, despite the rather frenetic editing style that goes along with it. I was also a little let-down by the lack of violence. I was literally expecting limbs flying all over the place, and blood painting the walls. Yes, we get people getting stabbed and shot, but it’s never gratuitous, other than perhaps one guy (who shall remain nameless) sitting on a chainsaw, which was pretty amusing.
Another irritation of mine was how much of the violence was off-screen or cut-away shots. This is rated 18 for a reason, and as such I don’t want the shot changing and the sound of gunshots being all we get – I want to see that person get shot to smithereens in an extremely violent and visceral manner, but alas, we’re disappointed. There’s this great bit where one of the Tremor Brothers slices a guy with a chainsaw, but again, it’s a wasted opportunity as the guy just falls to the floor – we don’t see a squib of blood fly out of him or him fall in half or even just writhe around a bit before dying. It’s all very rushed, and suffers greatly.
The film at about this point diverges again into an incredibly inane subplot, where one of Ben Affleck’s buddies who was left for dead managed to escape to a cabin in the woods, where he meets an ADD-afflicted child who hasn’t taken his Ritalin and insists on delivering karate chops to the air every two seconds he’s on screen. This was just irritating to watch, although meeting the kid’s grandmother was mildly amusing.
Where the film truly makes or breaks is in my opinion with the twist - you’ll either love this or hate it. I hated it, as it just seemed convoluted and pretty stupid. Also, it did seem rather confusing at first from a dialogue point of view. It was unnecessary, and almost as though Carnahan was trying to add meaning or intricacy to a film that really didn’t need it.
From here, the film then segues into the ending portion of the film, which I found to slightly redeem the film, but also cause further irritation in how open-ended it was. We have a character turn pretty much a 180 as he realises that everything was not as it seemed. Just as it seems as though Carnahan is going to end it on what would have literally made the film go out with a bang, we just cut to black and the film’s over, leaving us to wonder the fate of a certain character. I must say, though, that the score in the final 2 minutes of the film was excellent, and very well-directed. There was a serenity about it that really shined through, and if only Carnahan could have stayed this restrained when directing the rest of the film.
I really, really tried to enjoy this film, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really deliver where I hoped it would. The horrendously hyperactive editing style, fairly dire script at times and lack of gore just made this exceptionally disappointing. It did play the “all bets are off” card fairly well, though, in that there was a huge sense of unpredictability as to who would live and die by the end of it. Good guys get mowed down like flies, and a fairly high number of the baddies escape, which I found pretty refreshing, but it’s not enough to save a fundamentally flawed film. I mean, an Alicia Keys nude scene would’ve been nice in the least. It seems to be a case of myself personally having too high expectations, and Carnahan in this instance just not meeting them. I’d honestly leave this to a rental on a rainy Saturday night if I were you, guys.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
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Let me begin by saying that my overview of the film would be that it’s one that is extremely flawed, and mildly entertaining rather than the exciting amalgamation of hilarity and carnage that myself, and I’m sure many others, were hoping for.
The basic set up, as I’m sure many of you know, is that a loser magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel has turned informant against the Mob (who are actually referred to as “La Cosa Nostra”, their real name, which is a rarity in film), and so the leader of the mob places a million dollar bounty on his head. And so we have a fleet of money-hungry assassins attempting to get to Israel, kill him, and remove his heart, as the mob leader rather strangely requested, although this is important later.
The film begins with a wire-tap operation going down, with FBI agents Messner and Carruthers (played with gusto respectively by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) discovering the impending hit going down on Israel. Herein lies one of my main gripes about the film – the first half an hour is really a lot of build-up. We find out what’s going on, we meet the assassins, but at the end of the day, I was just chomping at the bit to see as much mayhem on the screen as possible as soon as possible. This wasn’t a film I was particularly expecting to be attempting to weave intricate plot threads or even develop characters well at all, but the film tries to, and it’s just too much for a 108-minute film, especially when it steals so much of the screen time from the main attraction.
The assassins themselves are expectedly the treat of the film, though. We have The Tremor Brothers – three insane Nazis who love to run around wielding chainsaws and eating cheesits (which got one of the biggest laughs in my screening), a sly master of disguise, two lesbian lovers (one of whom is played by Alicia Keys with surprising competence), and a guy who wields a blade quite literally up his sleeve. There are also some other treats, such as Jason Bateman’s annoyingly short cameo as someone who I can’t even remember now as I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, the guy needed more screen-time as the herpes-infested, alcoholic loser that he was. Also, the biggest grin spread across my face when I realised that Aces’ lawyer was played by Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, a cameo role that was just, again, far too short.
This introduction of the assassins made it fairly clear to me early on that the script wasn’t particularly well-written. Sure, Garcia and Liotta had some good one-liners thrown at them occasionally, but by and large it’s just irritating sounding and detracts from the film somewhat. Also, I found some of the dialogue was practically inaudible due to the volume of the soundtrack. If I ever rent this on DVD, I think I’ll have to display the subs for a fair portion of it. Or maybe my cinema was just messing around with the print, I don’t know.
I hate to plumb these depths, but damn, Alicia Keys was smokin’ (no pun intended) in this film. She just oozed sexiness, and needless to say Common is one lucky fella getting the screen-time he does with her.
Back to the film – once the assassins begin arriving at the hotel, we diverge into yet more build-up as the assassins prepare for their various hits. During this, however, there is one rather marvelous, yet again very short scene where Ray Liotta attempts to subdue one of the assassins in an elevator, resulting in a close-combat shootout. It’s all over far too quickly, and we’re quickly transported back to the dross that came before it. A few other fairly inconsequent hits are carried out, and it doesn’t really do much to compensate for the time being wasted when we could see so much a**e getting kicked.
It’s almost 75 minutes in before we even get to the main event that trailers heavily advertised, and that’s the massive hotel standoff with everyone still alive shooting the hell out of each other. It was extremely fun to watch, but lasted barely 10 minutes before it was over. I was hoping for a 20 or 30 minute gun-battle with bodies flailing all over the place, but alas, I was again disappointed. What we get is great, despite the rather frenetic editing style that goes along with it. I was also a little let-down by the lack of violence. I was literally expecting limbs flying all over the place, and blood painting the walls. Yes, we get people getting stabbed and shot, but it’s never gratuitous, other than perhaps one guy (who shall remain nameless) sitting on a chainsaw, which was pretty amusing.
Another irritation of mine was how much of the violence was off-screen or cut-away shots. This is rated 18 for a reason, and as such I don’t want the shot changing and the sound of gunshots being all we get – I want to see that person get shot to smithereens in an extremely violent and visceral manner, but alas, we’re disappointed. There’s this great bit where one of the Tremor Brothers slices a guy with a chainsaw, but again, it’s a wasted opportunity as the guy just falls to the floor – we don’t see a squib of blood fly out of him or him fall in half or even just writhe around a bit before dying. It’s all very rushed, and suffers greatly.
The film at about this point diverges again into an incredibly inane subplot, where one of Ben Affleck’s buddies who was left for dead managed to escape to a cabin in the woods, where he meets an ADD-afflicted child who hasn’t taken his Ritalin and insists on delivering karate chops to the air every two seconds he’s on screen. This was just irritating to watch, although meeting the kid’s grandmother was mildly amusing.
Where the film truly makes or breaks is in my opinion with the twist - you’ll either love this or hate it. I hated it, as it just seemed convoluted and pretty stupid. Also, it did seem rather confusing at first from a dialogue point of view. It was unnecessary, and almost as though Carnahan was trying to add meaning or intricacy to a film that really didn’t need it.
From here, the film then segues into the ending portion of the film, which I found to slightly redeem the film, but also cause further irritation in how open-ended it was. We have a character turn pretty much a 180 as he realises that everything was not as it seemed. Just as it seems as though Carnahan is going to end it on what would have literally made the film go out with a bang, we just cut to black and the film’s over, leaving us to wonder the fate of a certain character. I must say, though, that the score in the final 2 minutes of the film was excellent, and very well-directed. There was a serenity about it that really shined through, and if only Carnahan could have stayed this restrained when directing the rest of the film.
I really, really tried to enjoy this film, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really deliver where I hoped it would. The horrendously hyperactive editing style, fairly dire script at times and lack of gore just made this exceptionally disappointing. It did play the “all bets are off” card fairly well, though, in that there was a huge sense of unpredictability as to who would live and die by the end of it. Good guys get mowed down like flies, and a fairly high number of the baddies escape, which I found pretty refreshing, but it’s not enough to save a fundamentally flawed film. I mean, an Alicia Keys nude scene would’ve been nice in the least. It seems to be a case of myself personally having too high expectations, and Carnahan in this instance just not meeting them. I’d honestly leave this to a rental on a rainy Saturday night if I were you, guys.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
The basic set up, as I’m sure many of you know, is that a loser magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel has turned informant against the Mob (who are actually referred to as “La Cosa Nostra”, their real name, which is a rarity in film), and so the leader of the mob places a million dollar bounty on his head. And so we have a fleet of money-hungry assassins attempting to get to Israel, kill him, and remove his heart, as the mob leader rather strangely requested, although this is important later.
The film begins with a wire-tap operation going down, with FBI agents Messner and Carruthers (played with gusto respectively by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) discovering the impending hit going down on Israel. Herein lies one of my main gripes about the film – the first half an hour is really a lot of build-up. We find out what’s going on, we meet the assassins, but at the end of the day, I was just chomping at the bit to see as much mayhem on the screen as possible as soon as possible. This wasn’t a film I was particularly expecting to be attempting to weave intricate plot threads or even develop characters well at all, but the film tries to, and it’s just too much for a 108-minute film, especially when it steals so much of the screen time from the main attraction.
The assassins themselves are expectedly the treat of the film, though. We have The Tremor Brothers – three insane Nazis who love to run around wielding chainsaws and eating cheesits (which got one of the biggest laughs in my screening), a sly master of disguise, two lesbian lovers (one of whom is played by Alicia Keys with surprising competence), and a guy who wields a blade quite literally up his sleeve. There are also some other treats, such as Jason Bateman’s annoyingly short cameo as someone who I can’t even remember now as I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, the guy needed more screen-time as the herpes-infested, alcoholic loser that he was. Also, the biggest grin spread across my face when I realised that Aces’ lawyer was played by Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, a cameo role that was just, again, far too short.
This introduction of the assassins made it fairly clear to me early on that the script wasn’t particularly well-written. Sure, Garcia and Liotta had some good one-liners thrown at them occasionally, but by and large it’s just irritating sounding and detracts from the film somewhat. Also, I found some of the dialogue was practically inaudible due to the volume of the soundtrack. If I ever rent this on DVD, I think I’ll have to display the subs for a fair portion of it. Or maybe my cinema was just messing around with the print, I don’t know.
I hate to plumb these depths, but damn, Alicia Keys was smokin’ (no pun intended) in this film. She just oozed sexiness, and needless to say Common is one lucky fella getting the screen-time he does with her.
Back to the film – once the assassins begin arriving at the hotel, we diverge into yet more build-up as the assassins prepare for their various hits. During this, however, there is one rather marvelous, yet again very short scene where Ray Liotta attempts to subdue one of the assassins in an elevator, resulting in a close-combat shootout. It’s all over far too quickly, and we’re quickly transported back to the dross that came before it. A few other fairly inconsequent hits are carried out, and it doesn’t really do much to compensate for the time being wasted when we could see so much a**e getting kicked.
It’s almost 75 minutes in before we even get to the main event that trailers heavily advertised, and that’s the massive hotel standoff with everyone still alive shooting the hell out of each other. It was extremely fun to watch, but lasted barely 10 minutes before it was over. I was hoping for a 20 or 30 minute gun-battle with bodies flailing all over the place, but alas, I was again disappointed. What we get is great, despite the rather frenetic editing style that goes along with it. I was also a little let-down by the lack of violence. I was literally expecting limbs flying all over the place, and blood painting the walls. Yes, we get people getting stabbed and shot, but it’s never gratuitous, other than perhaps one guy (who shall remain nameless) sitting on a chainsaw, which was pretty amusing.
Another irritation of mine was how much of the violence was off-screen or cut-away shots. This is rated 18 for a reason, and as such I don’t want the shot changing and the sound of gunshots being all we get – I want to see that person get shot to smithereens in an extremely violent and visceral manner, but alas, we’re disappointed. There’s this great bit where one of the Tremor Brothers slices a guy with a chainsaw, but again, it’s a wasted opportunity as the guy just falls to the floor – we don’t see a squib of blood fly out of him or him fall in half or even just writhe around a bit before dying. It’s all very rushed, and suffers greatly.
The film at about this point diverges again into an incredibly inane subplot, where one of Ben Affleck’s buddies who was left for dead managed to escape to a cabin in the woods, where he meets an ADD-afflicted child who hasn’t taken his Ritalin and insists on delivering karate chops to the air every two seconds he’s on screen. This was just irritating to watch, although meeting the kid’s grandmother was mildly amusing.
Where the film truly makes or breaks is in my opinion with the twist - you’ll either love this or hate it. I hated it, as it just seemed convoluted and pretty stupid. Also, it did seem rather confusing at first from a dialogue point of view. It was unnecessary, and almost as though Carnahan was trying to add meaning or intricacy to a film that really didn’t need it.
From here, the film then segues into the ending portion of the film, which I found to slightly redeem the film, but also cause further irritation in how open-ended it was. We have a character turn pretty much a 180 as he realises that everything was not as it seemed. Just as it seems as though Carnahan is going to end it on what would have literally made the film go out with a bang, we just cut to black and the film’s over, leaving us to wonder the fate of a certain character. I must say, though, that the score in the final 2 minutes of the film was excellent, and very well-directed. There was a serenity about it that really shined through, and if only Carnahan could have stayed this restrained when directing the rest of the film.
I really, really tried to enjoy this film, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really deliver where I hoped it would. The horrendously hyperactive editing style, fairly dire script at times and lack of gore just made this exceptionally disappointing. It did play the “all bets are off” card fairly well, though, in that there was a huge sense of unpredictability as to who would live and die by the end of it. Good guys get mowed down like flies, and a fairly high number of the baddies escape, which I found pretty refreshing, but it’s not enough to save a fundamentally flawed film. I mean, an Alicia Keys nude scene would’ve been nice in the least. It seems to be a case of myself personally having too high expectations, and Carnahan in this instance just not meeting them. I’d honestly leave this to a rental on a rainy Saturday night if I were you, guys.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer