Johnny10

Briand De Palms is one of the master directors of today. And rarely will one of his movies be a total bomb or painfully bad film, although lately they haven't been adding up (*cough*, Black Dahlia) they are still a treat to watch. Adding to one of his lists is the Hitchcockian like thriller "Snake Eyes", it had everything going for it. An over the top yet fun performance by Nicolas Cage, a sneaky and smart screen play, edgy camera work, and a restless atmosphere that echoes thriller classics such as "Psycho". All is going well in this film resembling old mystery classics by putting minimal swearing, sex, drugs and a few scenes of startling violence all going at a steady and smooth pace. At this time a specific character resembles " Twist in the end bad guy" , myself believing that De Palma was doing this intentionally to try to throw some of us off, what happens... the predictable bad guy is the bad guy. But it's OK seeing that all the rest of the film was good but too bad De Palma went with being predictable. In the end greatly stylish, well acted, great atmosphere, well placed camera shots, brisk pace,... Bad ending.

This movie is engaging in the first twenty or so minutes, with a good cast including famous celebrities (Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, James Caviesel) and some appearances from indie stars (Peter Stormare, Joe Pantilona, Jeremy Sisto, and Marke Boone Junior). The acting is pretty good and the camera work is OK as is the story, with enough twists and turns to probably entertain most viewers for the running time. It's not a bad movie but not a great one either, with it's story there is no moral to be learned and that's fine but i wish the director gave the movie more style since it's not a heavy drama, the camera wasn't very flashy almost bland and the scenes outside of the warehouse were poorly done. If only the movie took place all inside that warehouse and the if the director didn't try to make it so straight forward. overall i give this a B-, it's worth seeing but don't make a huge effort. Also don't listen to the ads saying that this has the same story style as Memento, because it doesn't. Rating: the film when i watched it was not rated, the movie contains many F words although not extreme, and the violence in this movie is toned down, yes there's some but not too bad.

saw it on Demand in IFC in Theatres

(The winner is Greengrass).This film to me just didn't work overall it didn't really give to much emotion through the movie and to much of the movie was about the family worrying and the people trying to find the two men. But when it came to the men below the rubble it seemed like no more then 10 minutes was used there.And when the men were under the rubble their was no character development amongst them, but rather flashbacks of their family and the two men talking about their family. And i have the utmost respect to all of the firemen,police and paramedics that were there that day and to all the victims that died that day but when the men were under the rubble and being rescued i just did not have to much emotion going on. And i think what the problem could have been was the PG 13 rating so much was toned down and i think that was a major flaw because what happened on September the 11th was rated R many people died and the things the rescuers saw was not PG 13 things and the dialog between the rescuers would not of been "fricken" but the other word and it just sounded un natural, if you think you should see a film about 9/11 i think Flight 93 was much better (which was rated R). Also i don't think this is an Oliver Stone film this just isn't his line of work he is a brilliant filmmaker and one of the best but this is more Spielberg or Ridley Scott. In Greengrass's film he portrayed so much more emotion i knew the outcome at the end of Flight 93 as i did in World Trade Center one i was biting my nails and shed a tear or two and the other i watched as a regular movie,Greengrass gave it a true tone World Trade Center just seemed like a movie. But i do give it a 4 for the performances from everyone from underrated actor Michael Shannon to Cage and everyone in between.