Better Living Through Chemistry

Better Living Through Chemistry - Dirs. David Posamentier & Geoff Moore (2014)

The tried and true film noir formula follows a man seduced by a femme fatale into murdering her significant other, then digging himself into a deeper hole as he tries to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice are two of the best examples. Better Living Through Chemistry takes a comedic approach to the basic noir story.

Doug Varney (Sam Rockwell) is a pharmacist and a family man living in the small, picturesque New England town of Woodbury. Too bad his life isn't as equally picturesque. Doug is married to the emasculating Kara (Michelle Monaghan), who constantly undercuts his abilities as a father and a husband. Their son Ethan (Harrison Holzer) is obviously troubled as he paints his bedroom windows black and smears feces everywhere at school. Kara denies anything is wrong and shows more concern for spin classes and bike marathons. Doug's father-in-law, Walter Bishop (Ken Howard), doesn't have much confidence in him either. Despite selling the town's pharmacy to Doug, he refuses to change the name from Bishop's to Varney's.

It's easy to see why Doug would fall fast for the glamorous Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde), the trophy wife to an absentee husband (Ray Liotta). Elizabeth shares with Doug her passions for sex and popping prescription pills. Their torrid love affair ignites something within Doug as he begins concocting his own medications by mixing everything from Prozac to valium. He even manages to become more assertive and reestablish his relationship with Ethan. However, things start to unravel when Elizabeth suggests they murder her spouse by tampering with his heart pills and using the insurance money to run away together. There's also a DEA agent (Norbert Leo Butz) snooping around the drug store.

In spite of a stellar cast, Better Living was released direct to video with very little fanfare. The humor falls flat on its face due to terrible jokes revolving around STDs and poop. For an inexplicable reason, Jane Fonda provides voiceover narration, the kind that unnecessarily spells out every little detail for you. Fonda later makes a cameo as a customer shopping for douche. How classy.

For what it's worth, Rockwell is one of my favorite actors working right now. He truly excels at playing smarmy and conniving characters as evidenced in Iron Man 2 and Seven Psychopaths. Here, Rockwell gets to go over-the-top as Doug spirals out of control as well as play it understated as the henpecked Doug. He's the movie's saving grace.

Better Living Through Chemistry was written and directed by newcomers David Posamentier and Geoff Moore, who have been tapped to pen Paramount's remake of Explorers. You wish the pair had delved deeper into the premise beyond one-note characters and tired gags. Better Living is full of wasted potential.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines - Dir. Derek Cianfrance (2013)

"If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder."

Derek Cianfrance debuted as a filmmaker with 1998's Brother Tied, but didn't gain widespread notice until his second feature, "Blue Valentine," an intimate and heartbreaking story of a dissolving marriage. Cianfrance's latest movie, The Place Beyond the Pines, is a much more ambitious effort that re-teams the writer/director with Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling.

Place Beyond the Pines is a generational drama told in three parts about the sins of the father passing on to their sons. The tale begins with an uninterrupted tracking shot of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), the main attraction at a traveling carnival. Luke and his partners, the Heartthrobs, ride their motorcycles around and around within the confines of a caged sphere, an apt allusion for Luke's vagabond life. That is, until he runs into old flame, Romina (Eva Mendes), and discovers they had a son together. Luke decides to stick around. In his own words, "I wasn't around my dad...look at the way I turned out." However, his job prospects are slim and the only work he can get is fixing cars at a low-rent body shop run by Robin (Ben Mendelsohn, once again cast as a sweaty lowlife). Looking to score some fast cash, Luke and Robin cobble a plan to rob banks with the former hitting hard and fast before escaping on his bike. There, Robin will be waiting with a box truck to scoop up Luke and make their escape.

The second act changes gears as we follow Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a squeaky clean beat cop who crosses paths with Luke, now dubbed the 'Moto-Bandit.' Avery's newfound notoriety catches the eye of veteran detective Peter Deluca (Ray Liotta). Soon, Avery finds himself in a dirty world where he's forced to take payoffs and steal evidence from police lockup. The story leaps forward fifteen years in the third act to focus on Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen), the respective sons of Luke and Avery. Jason has a lot of questions about the father he never knew while AJ feels ignored by his dad, who is in the running for New York's Attorney General. The two become friends not knowing the improbable connection they share.

Cianfrance announces his bold vision for Place Beyond the Pines right from the beginning with that memorable tracking shot courtesy of DP Sean Bobbitt, who also shot similar sequences for Steve McQueen on Hunger and Shame. Gosling commands attention with every scene he's in, despite the fact that he plays a slight variation of the taciturn loner seen in Drive. Gosling's smoldering charisma is so undeniable that the film suffers when he disappears. This is no slight on Bradley Cooper, but his character isn't nearly as interesting and his travails are fairly formulaic. The movie does improve in the third act with the arrival of Dane DeHaan, who bares more than a resemblance to a young Leonardo DiCaprio. DeHaan has quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's top newcomers due to his work on Lawless and Chronicle. His performance here is strong and carries the final section of Pines while Cohen overplays his hand with a thick Long Island accent. Eva Mendes is also terrific as the glammed down Romina. Well, at least as glammed down as Eva Mendes can get.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an uneven effort by Derek Cianfrance, but the writer/director has nothing to be ashamed about. There's a melancholy lyricism to the movie, which is handsomely shot and littered with emotional performances and naturalistic dialogue.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly - Dir. Andrew Dominik (2012)

"You ever kill anyone? They get touchy-feely, emotional, a lot of fuss. They either plead or beg. They call for their mothers. I like to kill 'em softly…from a distance."

As the old saying goes, "Never judge a book by its cover." So it goes with Killing Them Softly, a film seemingly depicted by the trailers as an action-packed crime thriller. Comparing it to a John Woo movie, would be like comparing Drive to The Fast and the Furious. Killing Them Softly is arthouse noir masquerading as typical multiplex fare.

Killing Them Softly is written and directed by Andrew Dominik whose previous film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a hauntingly beautiful picture that had more in common with Terrence Malick than the average shoot 'em up Western. Dominik's latest work is based on the 1974 novel, Cogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins, who stands alongside Dennis Lehane as one of the preeminent authors of Boston crime fiction. The only other book by Higgins that has been translated to cinema is The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a cult classic of gritty 70's cinema with Robert Mitchum perfectly cast in the title role of a low-level crook forced to turn informant to avoid prison.

The stylish dialogue remains largely intact, but Dominik has moved the story to a post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008. Obama, Bush, and John McCain serve as a Greek chorus as excerpts of their speeches about the financial collapse, the massive bailouts, and the murky future of the country play throughout the movie. Dominik sets the stage with a jarring opening as audio of then-Senator Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention is intercut with distorted feedback. A lone figure walks through the desolate streets as litter floats around him. The final images are side-by-side billboards of the presidential candidates and their photogenic smiles as they survey the ruined kingdom they hope will be their prize. It's a prologue that feels ripped out of an experimental film.

From there, Killing Them Softly cuts to a more conventional scene as Johnny Amato aka Squirrel (Vincent Curatola) hires two crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his drug-addled friend Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), to knock over a high-stakes poker game for mobsters. The clandestine games are run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who actually robbed one of his games years ago. No one could prove he did it though he later drunkenly bragged about pulling the job, yet his bosses still gave him a pass. Johnny knows that if the game is robbed again, it will be Markie who falls immediately under suspicion. This is where Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) enters the story (after almost half an hour) in grand fashion, snorting cigarette smoke and driving a classic town car to the tune of "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. Cogan is hired to track down the thieves and deal with them in his own indomitable manner.

Dominik incessantly hammers home the idea that the entire film is a parable for the economic crisis and that there is little difference between the financial sector and organized crime. The heads of the mafia are never seen and only represented by Richard Jenkins as a middle management suit exasperated by the corporate structure he's entrenched in. Only in this corporate structure could Trattman be allowed to steal from his own company and be placed in a position where he could do so again. Cogan himself is surrounded by incompetent underlings and indecisive superiors. They move about in a world where everyone makes their money by gambling, stealing, and scamming from one another. It's a world where loyalty is an inconvenience when it comes to saving your own ass. It's a thoroughly masculine world too with the only female character in the movie being a prostitute.

Then, there's New York Mickey (James Gandolfini) who could be seen as a thinly veiled representation of the SEC or any other ineffectual watchdog committee. Mickey is a renowned enforcer brought in by Cogan to assist in the murder of Johnny Amato. Much to Cogan's dismay, Mickey has become a bitter shell of his former self. Mickey drowns his self-pity with booze and hookers as he bemoans his shattered marriage and an impending prison sentence.

Buried underneath the ham-fisted political rhetoric is a compelling film yearning to breathe. The dialogue crackles and the performances are strong. Pitt moves across the screen with an effortless swagger wrapped in a black leather coat. The scenes he shares with Gandolfini are some of the best in the movie though they could have been excised entirely with no impact to the rest of the narrative. They exist as if they were separate one-act plays written by David Mamet. Gandolfini initially turned the part down due to its similarities to Tony Soprano. Gandolfini isn't the only one typecast as a gangster, there's also Ray Liotta and Vincent Curatola, another Sopranos alum. You can easily see Soprano, Henry Hill, and Johnny Sack slowly turning into these pathetic wrecks. However, their roles feel short changed, not surprising since Dominik edited the picture from an early two and a half hour cut to 97 minutes. One supporting standout is Ben Mendelsohn, an Aussie actor used to portraying scumbags. He recently popped up as a ruthless executive in The Dark Knight Rises, but first gained notice as the psychotic Pope in Animal Kingdom. As Russell, Mendelsohn is the definition of sleazy so much so you'll want to take a shower after watching him. He's constantly caked in a layer of sweat and dresses like a disheveled hobo. Sam Shepard appears in one scene as an enforcer named Dillon, who was superbly played by Peter Boyle in the aforementioned Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Anyone who has seen Assassination of Jesse James knows Dominik is capable of crafting gorgeous imagery. Killing Them Softly is no exception as Dominik stages sequences that are both poetic and violent. There's a brutal beatdown soaked in rain, blood, and vomit. Later, a shooting occurs in slow motion as a bullet exits a man's skull as beads of water and broken glass swim in a sea of crimson red. When Russell does heroin, Dominik uses a trippy first person perspective reminiscent of Gaspar Noé's interminable Enter the Void. The soundtrack selection is just as on the nose as Dominik's message with "Heroin" by Velvet Underground scoring the scene and Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" over the end credits.

"I'm living in America and in America you're on your own. America's not a country, it's a business. Now fuckin' pay me."

That final line, delivered by Pitt as a cynical response to Obama's hopeful inaugural address, encapsulates Dominik's themes more succinctly than the heavy handed method he employs. It may be amusing to imagine a criminal underworld that subsists solely on a steady stream of C-SPAN and NPR, Killing Them Softly would have been better served with the same distanced approach used by its protagonist.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Wanderlust

Wanderlust - Dir. David Wain (2012)

Wanderlust is the latest comedy to come out of the Judd Apatow factory. It was directed by David Wain and reunites him with several members of the sketch comedy show, The State, including Ken Marino, who co-wrote the screenplay with him. Wain's first feature film was 2001's Wet Hot American Summer, a cult classic that was a spoof of 80's summer camp comedies like Meatballs. His biggest hit to date was Role Models with Paul Rudd as an energy drink pitchman dissatisfied with his life.

In Wanderlust, Rudd is George, a white collar worker seemingly satisfied with his life. He's married to the beautiful Linda (Jennifer Aniston), a documentary filmmaker, and they've just bought a "micro-loft" in the trendy West Village of Manhattan. Never mind that the cramped accommodations are a glorified studio apartment, it's a sound investment says their real estate broker. Then, the bottom drops out. HBO turns down Linda's new doc about penguins with testicular cancer and George's firm is shut down due to revelations of massive fraud. The not-so-happy couple is forced to move into the Atlanta McMansion of George's overbearing brother, Rick (Marino). During the road trip, George and Linda take a detour into a hippy commune called Elysium and are drawn to stay by a life unburdened of the trappings of modern society.

Wanderlust is rife with great, comedic performances from a game supporting cast. Marino is very funny as the obnoxious Rick with Michaela Watkins as his put upon wife. The denizens of Elysium are a colorful batch of characters led by Justin Theroux as their guru, Seth, whose outdated knowledge of technology consists of laserdiscs, FAX machines, and Walkmans. Alan Alda co-stars as Carvin, the community's burnt out founder, who rides around on an electric scooter. There's also Malin Akerman as the sexy bombshell, Eva, and Joe Lo Truglio as a wine making nudist. When he's not stomping grapes for his homemade wine, he's attempting to write a Robert Ludlum-esque political thriller.

There's good chemistry between Rudd and Aniston, having previously worked together in The Object of My Affection. Aniston gets to play it looser than usual though she doesn't get as outrageous as the sexpot dentist in Horrible Bosses. Rudd is always entertaining as the exasperated straight man. He gets the best scene in the film when he tries to psych himself up to sleep with Eva by awkwardly spouting dirty talk in front of a mirror. Nothing else in Wanderlust can top it. In fact, the bloopers shown over the end credits were the only other thing I laughed at. Rudd is naturally funny, especially when it feels like he's working off the cuff. However, the humor in Wanderlust is strained and full of tired jokes about hippies and their lack of hygiene. There's also a lame subplot involving real estate developers threatening Elysium.

In 1985, Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and starred in Lost in America, a sharp comedy with he and Julie Hagerty as yuppie Los Angelinos. They leave behind their lives to travel across the country in a Winnebago only to discover their old, materialistic ways were just fine. Wanderlust isn't nearly as subversive or satirical. It's a rather pedestrian comedy, despite all the talent involved.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

The Son of No One

The Son of No One - Dir. Dito Montiel (2011)

Good actors do bad movies all the time. Such is the case with The Son of No One, a gritty crime drama with an A-list cast and a D-list story. What possessed them to take part in such a muddled mess? It's likely that on paper the film was an intriguing challenge, but the final product is decidedly not.

The Son of No One was written and directed by Dito Montiel, a former male model and hardcore punk musician. Montiel made his directorial debut with A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which starred Channing Tatum, Robert Downey Jr., and Shia Labeouf and was based on his memoirs about growing up in Astoria, Queens. Montiel reunited with Tatum for his second feature, Fighting, about, what else, underground fighting.

Montiel and Tatum are back together again as the director returns to his old stomping grounds of Queens. The film opens in 1986 with a young boy named Jonathan "Milk" White (Jake Cherry), who lives in the Queensboro projects with his grandmother. He is cowering in fear in the bathroom of his best friend Vinnie (Brian Gilbert) as a crazed junkie attempts to break down the door. Holding a gun in his hand, Jonathan opens fire and kills the intruder. The kid's late father was a police officer and his former partner, Det. Charles Stanford (Al Pacino), sweeps the whole thing under the rug.

Flash forward to 2002 and Jonathan is now a beat cop living in Staten Island with a wife (Katie Holmes) and a daughter, who suffers from seizures. Jonathan is transferred to Queens just as a local reporter, Loren Bridges (Juliette Binoche), begins receiving anonymous letters claiming the NYPD covered up two murders in the projects. Specifically, these letters name Det. Stanford and Jonathan's new commanding officer Captain Mathers (Ray Liotta).

Huh? Two murders? Yes, Jonathan White proves to be the unluckiest boy in the world, chalks up another accidental kill when a neighboring scumbag kicks his scruffy little dog to death. This ridiculous scene sums up exactly how Montiel piles on the melodrama in The Son of No One. Since half the story is set in 2002, the specter of 9/11 is ever present. Montiel imbues a heavy handed message that corruption still existed even at a time when the NYPD was still riding the wave of heroic patriotism. The frequency in which the plot bounces back and forth from '86 to '02 is both confusing and infuriating.

The past isn't any better than the future. It's not enough for Jonathan to murder one person before he even hits puberty. This poor boy has to kill two. And was there any reason to cover up the original death? It was a clear cut case of self-defense though you could argue Stanford didn't want to drag little Jonathan into a court case. It just adds to the overall feeling that not a lot of thought was put into the story. Meanwhile, Jonathan's old BFF, Vinnie, also suffers from an overabundance of soap opera setbacks. Not only was he traumatized by witnessing the murders, he was also molested by his mother's boyfriend and spent time in an institution. He's also played as an adult by Tracy Morgan, who gives it his all in a rare dramatic turn, but is simply unable to shed his outrageous comedic persona. His performance here immediately brings to mind the 30 Rock story arc where Tracy Jordan attempts to go serious by winning an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).

Tatum, who sports a stereotypical cop's mustache, is an underrated comedic actor, but his dramatic chops leave much to be desired. He's too bland and wooden to make much of a mark. As for the rest of the cast, they're good, particularly James Ransone as Jonathan's fiery partner and Juliette Binoche, whose French accent stands out against a sea of New York/Italian inflections. Ray Liotta pretty much plays Ray Liotta while Katie Holmes gets nothing to do, except scream at her husband, "What's happening? Why won't you tell me the truth?" Then, there's Al Pacino, who is surprisingly restrained. Sorry, but subdued Pacino isn't nearly as much fun as bug-eyed and crazy Pacino.

The Son of No One premiered at Sundance in 2011, but received a lot of negative buzz. It's only now being released on DVD and Blu-ray from Anchor Bay. I can't think of a good reason to track this movie down unless you have to see everything Channing Tatum and Al Pacino are in.

Rating: * (*****)

Observe and Report

Observe and Report - Dir. Jody Hill (2009)


”The world has no use for another scared man. Right now, the world needs a fucking hero.”

Much like Adventureland which was released a week before, Observe and Report is advertised as something it’s not. Trading on the popularity of Seth Rogen, Observe has plenty of low-brow, raunchy humor, but it's not the wall-to-wall laugh riot the trailers make it out to be. It’s far darker than any of the Apatow or Apatow-like films. The comparison could be made that this is Seth Rogen's Cable Guy. The film is the sophomore effort from writer/director Jody Hill who inexplicably wowed a select group of Sundance festival-goers with his debut, The Foot Fist Way about an abrasive Tae Kwan Do instructor played by Danny McBride.

Seth Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhardt has a similarly abrasive attitude sometimes hidden behind a mask of geniality. Barnhardt is a mall cop, but he’s not quite as likeable as previous Rogen characters and he’s certainly nothing like Paul Blart. He’s bipolar with a deep-seated vicious streak and delusions of grandeur. Ronnie has held an unrequited crush on Brandi (Anna Faris), the buxom blonde behind the make-up counter. A serial flasher begins turning the mall into his own personal playground by exposing himself to unsuspecting women. When Brandi becomes his latest victim, he vows to bring the pervert to justice. This puts him at odds with Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), the officer assigned to the case. Harrison becomes even more exasperated when Ronnie makes it known that he intends to join the police force. Throughout the film, Ronnie battles his own personal demons just as he battles teenage skateboarders.

Observe and Report answers the question of what Taxi Driver would have been like if Scorsese made it into a comedy. Ronnie Barnhardt is a disturbed individual and walks that thin line between being funny and repulsive. It's only through the sheer force of personality that Rogen keeps him from becoming completely unsympathetic. The first half of the film belie the darker corners in which it delves in the latter half. Jody Hill's script is uneven. At times, it's sharp and outrageous. Yet, Hill fails to curb his baser impulses and the film just goes too far, particularly in the end.

Rogen's best scenes really are when he's attempting to keep things more lighthearted. He trades F you's with a Middle Eastern vendor (Aziz Ansari) who he derisively calls Saddam. Anna Faris is perfectly suited for the shallow bimbo role and proves again she's one of the most talented female comics today. The real surprise comes from Michael Pena who is known more for dramatic fare such as Crash and World Trade Center. Here, Pena dons a mop top and lisp to play Ronnie's second-in-command Dennis.

Rating: ** 1/2

Smokin' Aces

Smokin' Aces - Dir. Joe Carnahan (2007)


Is it possible for a movie to have a ton of stuff happening, but have nothing happen at all? Sure, that movie is called Smokin’ Aces, a tangled web of uninteresting plotlines and anarchic filmmaking. The film is like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filtered through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino, then filtered again through the lens of Guy Ritchie. Not surprisingly, Joe Carnahan first emerged among the pack of indie filmmakers of the post-Tarantino era. His debut film Blood, Guts, Bullets, and Octane followed in the footsteps of Ritchie’s action/comedy Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Carnahan gained some instant credibility with the gritty crime drama, Narc, which won over Tom Cruise as a fan. Cruise would help Narc gain a wider release and hired Carnahan to direct Mission: Impossible III. The two had creative differences and Carnahan was later replaced by J.J. Abrams. Looking at Smokin’ Aces, it’s easy to see why Ethan Hunt gave Carnahan the boot.

The focal point of the story (such as it is) is a Vegas magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven). Israel’s shows garner a strong following with the local mobsters and pretty soon he’s playing cops and robbers with the big boys. Things don’t work out and Israel is arrested, but promptly skips bail to hide out in a penthouse in Lake Tahoe. Seeing him as a liability, mob boss Primo Sparazza puts a million dollar bounty on the head of Israel. Soon, contract killers and assassins come out of the woodwork to take on the job. Accepting the job are Georgia Sykes (R&B singer Alicia Keys) and her lover Sharice Watters (Taraji P. Henson), master of disguise Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan), the sadistic Pasqual Acosta (Nestor Carbonell), and the psychotic Tremor Brothers, Darwin (Chris Pine, the new Capt. Kirk), Jeeves (Kevin Durand), and Lester (Maury Sterling).

The FBI wants to get their hands on Israel, seeing him as a star witness to topple organized crime. Deputy Director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia) puts agents Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and his mentor Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta) on the case. Not to be counted out are a trio of bail bondsmen Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), Pete Deeks (Peter Berg), and Hollis Elmore (Martin Henderson) who also want to capture Israel. There are still a few other characters that I left out, but I can barely remember half of them. Thank goodness for my old friend Wikipedia.

The first half hour of the film is practically dedicated to exposition. We are methodically introduced to each character and whatever history they have. None of this backstory is particularly interesting or, at least, isn’t told to us in any sort of interesting way. We’re told the Tremor Brothers are neo-Nazi rednecks, but nothing they do or say is any indication that they are neo-Nazis or rednecks. They just dress oddly and carry around big guns and chainsaws. Carnahan seems to be tossing a bunch of goofy caricatures onto the screen to cover up his lack of writing skills. There’s a wacky kid with ADD who practices martial arts and speaks in gangster slang that shows up, if for no other reason than he’s a wacky kid with ADD who practices martial arts and speaks in gangster slang. The same goes for another scene where Bateman’s character wears women’s underwear. I don’t know who he’s supposed to be or what he’s adding to the story, but he’s wearing a bra and panties, so Ha ha ha.

Muddying up the proceedings even further is a subplot involving the cold case murder of an undercover FBI agent. First, the heavy-handed resolution of this B-story can be seen coming from a mile away. Secondly, it feels like something from a different film. In all honesty, I might have enjoyed the film if Carnahan went straight for the jugular and made this an orgy of carnage, bullets, and bloodshed. I could have been happy to check my brain at the door for a battle royal between hitmen and scumbags. Instead, we get this pseudo-FBI thriller/mystery element thrown in to add even more exposition than needed.

I’m shocked that such a hackneyed script was able to acquire such an amazing cast including an unrecognizable Matthew Fox. I’m even more taken aback that Carnahan does absolutely nothing interesting with any of them. Having far too many characters leaves little room for the them to breathe and develop. Not that Carnahan is very interested in that sort of thing, prefering anarchic mayhem and bad jokes.

I’m a big fan of Piven and not just as Ari Gold. I always thought he stood out in the supporting roles he’s played in films like Grosse Pointe Blank and Old School. As Buddy Israel, Piven isn’t so much a humorous character as a man who degenerates both physically and emotionally. However, I couldn’t help but think he could have done more. Reynolds who can display a great, cheeky humor doesn’t get the chance to do any of that here. Andy Garcia is another of fantastic actor wasted in a nothing part as he just sleepwalks through his role. About the one who’s a little more interesting, as an actor and character, is the debuting Alicia Keys as hitwoman Georgia Sykes. She and Tarija Henson add a tough feminine touch to the otherwise testosterone heavy production. It’s too bad they didn’t get meatier scenes. It also doesn’t hurt that Keys looks great in fishnet stockings and thigh-high leather boots.

Smokin’ Aces is about a decade too late to join up with the other Reservoir Dogs, Lock, Stock knockoffs. The film isn’t nearly as hip and cool as it makes out to be.

Rating: * 1/2