Smokin' Aces 2006

Critics score:
29 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Peter Debruge, Miami Herald: The hyper-stylized violence isn't nearly as senseless as the narrative bits in between. And the 'twist' employs the same sleight-of-hand as The Usual Suspects. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: This film was not based on a video game, but that's the vibe and the aesthetic at work here: YEAH! KILL!, followed by a few muttered expressions of the horror, the horror. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Did Carnahan think these sickening scenes would give Smokin' Aces a moral complexity that's generally absent from this genre? I think they make the picture seem even more morally bankrupt. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Based on this outing, writer-director Joe Carnahan can't tell a story worth a damn -- especially not a complicated mishmash like this one. Read more

Mark Rahner, Seattle Times: None of the numerous, sketchily drawn characters adds up to much to care about in the short running time. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Carnahan creates a spectacle of nihilism, with a number of scenes of carnage, including a shootout in an elevator. This vision is no mere gesture, as it is for, say, Guy Ritchie. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It's all a mad, mad, mad, mad whirl of bullets, bloodshed, the occasional breast and agonizingly lame jokes aimed at males who don't get out much. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: There's no shortage of flash and bother, but not much to care about. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Smokin Aces achieves a level of vicarious thrill, but it's all peaks and valleys, with lows that are too low and highs that are too high. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Sadly, more than an hour of this movie is given over to talking. And not the wink-wink Quentin Tarantino kind, either. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A grindhouse-inspired concoction that may not contain a shred of originality, but it is executed with unbridled bombast and glee. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: It's ludicrous, but not as ludicrous as the ending -- an exhausting game of Twister that'll leave you feeling stupid or cheated or both. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Meaningless violence incarnate, a pointed mix of laughs and wanton death; and yes, that might actually mean something, but precisely what is never clear. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: You can't take it seriously, but the movie is as lively as it is debased. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Anyone with a brain bigger than those of the Tremors will have figured out the big Usual Suspects twists that are designed to give all this some emotional payoff. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: This movie is meant to be watched the way a video game is played: just go from scene to scene and start blasting the minute you walk through the door. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: ... hyperventilating hogwash ... Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Take two or three over-the-top Hong Kong films, add a bit of blaxploitation attitude, spice it up with some Quentin Tarantino stunt casting, and soak the whole thing in crazy, chainsaw violence. Now throw out 90 percent of everything but the violence. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Violence is spread throughout the film, and some of it is entertaining, I have to admit. But the climax at Buddy's Tahoe penthouse is Tarantino on speed. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Impersonal hackwork by someone who is bending over backwards to sell out and become the new Michael Bay. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Smokin Aces is 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. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Putting Ben Affleck, and the poor man's Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds, in the same movie? Not a good move. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: But Smokin' Aces is all pumped up with no place to go, and the crashing letdown, as the rush fades and the ammo shells lie spent across the screen, is heavy indeed. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Smokin' Aces is Tarantino lite -- a vague and unsuccessful attempt to bring together a bunch of offbeat, unrelated characters in a situation where a bloody resolution is inescapable. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: A gruesome Cannonball Run with Piven flesh as the trophy, Smokin' Aces is a depressingly nihilistic entry in the Tarantino/Guy Ritchie/Ocean's Eleven caper genre. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: Smokin' Aces may be packing a lot of heat but its unnecessarily convoluted story means it's mostly a lot of hot air. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: This is from the same Joe Carnahan who impressed mightily with his Sundance hit Narc, a tale of murder and police corruption that was lean, focussed and spellbinding -- everything that Smokin' Aces isn't. What the hell happened? Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: We just sit there numbly, awaiting the next sensation and trying, without notable success, to comprehend the preposterous backstory. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: The film's whimsicality makes it a big step back for the director, who shows he has little handle over anything bar garish action set-pieces. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Time Out: Not a fresh idea emerges from this risible exercise in muscle-car camerawork, squib-crazy shoot-outs and self-admiring pyrotechnics. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It wants to be a Tarantino-esque dark comedy about gun-slinging, substance-abusing lowlifes. But instead it's a convoluted, slap-happy, humorless bloodfest. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: Smokin' Aces blows some cool smoke rings until it makes the very un-cool mistake of overstaying its welcome. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Self-important but not untalented, Smokin' Aces is tonally consistent from beginning to end, and, for all its bloody mayhem, kinetic nihilism, and jive minstrelsy, has a surprisingly light touch. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Isn't this grown-up? In a word, no, and that's what's so much fun about it. Read more