Dir.
Joe Carnahan, UK/France/US, 2006, 108mins
Cast: Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds
Review by Carol Allen
As bureaucraticc and
ruthless Deputy FBI Director Stanley Locke briefing agents
Richard Messner (Reynolds), and Donald Carruthers (Liotta),
actor Andy Garcia voices what must be one of the longest
exposition sequences ever in a movie. It goes on for around
twenty minutes and introduces so many characters that even
with the use of would be helpful captions giving their
names, it's almost impossible to keep up. So I'll help
you out here. The FBI have got wind that mob boss Primo
Sparazza has put a million dollar contract out on the life
of his former protégé entertainer
Buddy "Aces" Israel's (Piven), who's got too big
for his boots. And every top professional hit man - and a
couple of hit women - is out to collect the booty. They include
what appears to be a trio of refugees from The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre, a torture specialist, a master of disguise
(Tommy Flanagan), and the two aforementioned hit women -
Alicia Keyes as the glamorous one, Taraji Henson as her partner,
who'd like their relationship to be personal as well as professional.
As the only women in the cast they were the ones I most identified
with. Keyes in particular is very charismatic and athletic.
Messner and Carruthers' job is to protect Buddy, in order
to enable the bureau to find and capture Sparazza. To complicate
matters there's a bail bondsman (Ben Affleck in a part so
small you could miss him) and two ex vice cops (Peter Berg
and Martin Henderson) who want to get to Buddy before the
FBI does.
After wading through that opening wodge of far too much
information, the film settles down into a stylish if over
violent thriller with some very striking moments, particularly
those involving an assassin with no fingerprints - no idea
of his name, it was all getting far too complicated by now
and there was so much action I couldn't always hear the dialogue.
One of the most fascinating characters is the master of disguise,
who bumps off Buddy's delightfully stupid bodyguard (the
excellent Joel Edgerton) and takes over his persona, giving
Edgerton a chance to also play the master of disguise hit
man! In fact,the film does have a remarkable cast. Henderson
makes a strong impression, as do Liotta and Reynolds as the
FBI guys. Reynolds is also the most engaging character, and
the only one to show any human reaction, particularly at
the end, to what has by then become a total gun and gore
fest. Pivens is very good as the sleazy, vain and self-obsessed
Buddy, who consumes so much cocaine in the course of the
story, he looks likely to peg out before any of the assassins
get a pop at him. Apart from being more than a touch tricky
to follow, the carnage is a bit heavy going, unless you like
that sort of thing, with the sort of humour which goes right
over my head. Very much a boys' film, which should appeal
to those who enjoy films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels, only bloodier.
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