Smokin' Aces

Aroview: A high-strung crime caper of competing assassins from the dir. of NARC, dispatching with boyish glee a bevy of visual and narrative bullet points in the spirit of Quentin Tarantino’s violently profane cinema.

Unfortunately Carnahan proves to be a great pretender in his unfocused application of slap-dash gunplay, vulgar bloodletting and film school stylizations, none of which coalesce with the convoluted plot. Of the film’s corked-out cast, a sleazy Jeremy Piven binges it up as a high rolling state witness due to testify against the mob, whose bounty is pursued by a throng of colourful contract killers. Despite its zany execution, this misses more than it hits, best made a dysfunctional example of as attention-seeking style over substance.

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