The Guns Of Smokin' Aces

This is supposed to be one of the best shoot'em up action flicks to come out in a long time. Let's see if that is the case. Let's see if it is even worth the rental fee at Blockbusters. The story is simple and thin, leaving lots of room for good action, the casting is solid... potential is there for big bang bang action.

Instead of scene by scene like I've done before, I'm going to look at the characters and the weapons they use.

The first real weapon shots we got at from the Tremors... the punk rockers. They iced the bondsmen with a couple SMG's. Now one looked like a S&W and the other looked like a Sten. Old school simplicity with a big does of brutality. Cheaply made, it worked well with the punker's car and music. The scene was actually comical. It fit the characters perfectly. This is what I like... good matches.

The female sniper with a .50BMG? That's cliché. I'm not impressed. The Barrett 92 is too much. So is the pretty girl with the long hair. She had a number of handguns, each one different and in different calibers. Her main gun was a Glock, with a bunch of spare mags. She also had a Baby Eagle and a S&W 642 revolver. A real pro would have no more than two different types and most likely they would use the same mags. Mixing it up so much looks cool, like your ready for anything, but really it complicates things and makes you less capable.

The hitman with the scar face that makes masks is using a suppressed EAA Witness 9mm. Cheap gun, reasonable quality, its a good choice for the mission and not a platform that would be overly missed when it has to be ditched eventually.

Hotel Security is pretty tight. They might have a boil-faced guy down in the lobby but upstairs the boys in black are all packing SIG hardware. A top shelf duty weapon that means these guys take themselves very seriously for a hotel security team. Most hotel joints that have security are either unarmed or armed with S&W 3^rd Gen autos or Ruger autos. SIG P226 and P229's are mixed together. Probably personal choice rather than just general issue. They probably have a weapon allowance that lets the individual select the weapon that fits him the best. SIG's mean they are well funded and probably have more training that your run of the mill security team. Meaning they are not hotel employees but rather temporary contractors. At least that is how I'm reading them. They also have the look of professionals rather than 7.50 an hour guards. They handle themselves well and are in reasonable shape for special contractors. I don't think these guys would go down so easy as they did.

The FBI agent that was in Blade III is packing an HK P2000. A perfectly adequate handgun but nothing special. It being an HK means this agent not only carries his own personal weapon but that he takes reliability and himself a little too seriously. This fits the character from what I've seen so far. When the .50 BMG starts up, he starts spraying fire out the window? Then he throws the gun? He probably had to take the qualification course several times before passing.

Oh, and at that range, a .50 would have been making a much bigger mess than what they showed.

These super hot hit squads are not all that impressive or effective. The agents involved are not all that sharp or professional.

I'm really not all that happy I blew not just the money renting this steaming pile, but also the time it drained from my life. It was probably a fun flick to work on as cast and crew, but as an action movie goes, it pretty much just sucked. I'm posting this Guns Of review just to get everyone to STFU about me writing it.

Seriously, this is one of the movies that have turned me away from action movies. I can't take the IQ bashing abuse that modern action flicks are dishing out to fans of the genre. I'd rather watch a Romantic Comedy than these new action flicks any more.

For the love of all that is blood splattered, I want an action flick that is sharp and witty and at the same time brutal and gritty.

Until then, I'm going to just go back and watch my old favorites and remember the good old days when an action movie was an event and not just an exercise in marketing. Smokin' Aces was pure shiat. I don't know why so many guys liked it. I guess after so many shitty flicks (like Transporter II) when something that had at least some potential comes around people get on board because there is nothing else. Because it had the potential... the writer director had something here... This could have been the next Pulp Fiction. I'm not sure where it went wrong. But some how it all fell apart. Somewhere it became rushed. Somewhere it became just masturbatory and it lost the edgyness. And my interest.

Two items to note. On the DVD menu is an STI 2011, the best gun in the movie and it is just a background for the menu. I feel ripped off. The upshot is that Ben Afflac does his best acting ever in this movie. Seriously. Freaking solid. He's killed in a drive-by by the Tremor Brothers and one of them talks to his corpse and he talks back. Sort of. Oscar.

Copyright G H Hill 1999-2012

“I keep two magnums in my desk drawer. One is a gun that I keep loaded.  The other is a bottle and it keeps me loaded.”