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There is a new genre infesting our nation's movie theaters. With apologies to Garrison Kellior, let's call it "guy noir". Films aimed directly at the young, hip male audience. Movies that are an unholy combination of old fashioned film noir and the modern action movie, as directed by the class clown. They offer fast paced entertainment, great character actors, twisty plot lines, explosions and more spent ordinance than used in a typical week in Baghdad. Even new genres breed clichés however and the original freshness heralded by Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is beginning to smell the slightest bit stale. This brings us to Smokin' Aces, a movie that isn't so smug as to be intolerable or so brilliant as to be ground breaking. Rather it is good, competent, workmanlike example of its genre, which is bad news for a movie that wants to be hip and edgy.

Smokin' Aces has the requisite twisty plot. Actually it has at least nine plots, all twisty. In fact it has so many plots the movie dissolves into a series of incidences strung together by a smattering of narrative glue. Aces, a card magician and mob nabob, turns federal stoolie and a dying Godfather posts a high dollar contract on him. Naturally every photogenic hit-man with the weekend free descends upon Ace's casino penthouse to do the job and collect the dough. Smokin' Aces tries hard and includes everything needed to qualify as guy noir. It even tries to incorporate the "Tarantino Digression". That is, extended expository flashbacks incorporated for no good reason except that they are fun to watch. Smoking Aces can't quite pull these off as they require a defter touch than the movie is capable of.

There aren't any real people in Smokin' Aces. All the characters are strictly stereotypes played for effect rather than reality. Jeremy Piven as Aces is the self loathing hop head, Alicia Keys and Georgia Sykes are the hot lesbian hit team, Ben Afleck is the hipster bounty hunter and so on. Everything you need to know about these guys you learn in the first split second they are on the screen. There is no star in Smokin' Aces. Afleck, the biggest name, has a relatively small part and is upstaged by his hat. You might remember Chris Pine, Kevin Durand and Maury Sterling as the Tremor brothers if only because they were the loudest, most violent bunch in a loud violent movie. The only actor who rises above caricature is Ray Liotta, who invests his FBI agent with quiet dignity and a touch of pathos and in doing so sticks out like a sore thumb. It takes a strange sort of movie for a review to criticize the one genuinely good performance in it but Liotta just doesn't fit.

Smokin' Aces manages to hold its whirly gig self together for the most part. There are a few problems. It goes on too long after the climatic blood bath wrapping up plot threads you probably didn't notice amongst the explosions. There is a denouement where a hero, brought in from way out in left field, makes an existential choice that is not nearly as agonizing as the movie thinks it is because we have no emotional investment in the fellow making it. Though the final plot twist is prepared for and makes as much sense as anything else in the film, still it feels flat and unsatisfying. Think of Smokin' Aces as a shaggy dog story. It's long, involved and fun to listen to but ultimately goes nowhere.

Smokin' Aces was most certainly a bit of a magic show within itself, in that while you watched the evident plot go one way, you didn't notice the actual plot until BAM! it came out of nowhere. It wasn't the most coherent of plots sometimes, but for the most part it all wraps up in the end.

As far as greatness goes, this won't be up there winning awards. Rather, it might be remembered fondly as "that cool movie I saw a while ago." Good drama, good action. Ryan Reynolds breaks out in a truly serious and compelling role.

Definitely a movie worth viewing.

Smoking Aces is a film that tries hard, and in doing so is one that is not going to be easy to describe. The basic plot revolves around the central character "Aces" who is testifying against the mob, and in return has a contract out on his head. Locked away in his suite in Las Vegas, he is protected by the Fed, but there are multiple contract killers (all different from each as can be imagined!) out to get him.

First hour seems to be stuck piecing the different contract killers together and their background, whilst the Fed are shown to be trying to figure out what is going on. No one set of actors though gets above the others, and in doing so you have multiple stories in the film tied into the whole premise of the film. Acting is great by the general assemble which includes fine performances by Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta.

Problematically, the film tries to be too cool at the start, and reminds me too much of "Things to do in Denver...." and so on. In addition, the film is really confusing at points but is worth persevering with nevertheless. The complexity makes it very original, and you never know where its going, but it wraps up together in the last 30mins which are more than worth the cinema ticket alone.

No classic, but enjoyable, original and interesting overall..

There was a fair amount of comedy, thrill, and action. Each element was delivered at the right moment. The premise of the movie is not too complex. The movie provides enough background information in order for you to enjoy the movie. You have to buy in to the contrivance that multiple people are going to try to kill one man on the top floor of a casino. If you get pass that, you will have a really good time. Character performances were great. It has an amazing cast. Wonderful performances are given to Ryan Reynolds in a serious role and Jeremey Piven.

OVERALL...The story was good. This movie also had appealing eye-candy. You will get excited about this movie.

Buddy "Aces" Israel is in trouble. A Vegas entertainer once, he got to know the local mob and was taken by the lifestyle to the point that he began his own crew. Unfortunately for him and everyone he knows, it has caught up with him and he now finds himself targeted by all sides and in the hands of the FBI, desperately trying to make a deal with them from the security of the penthouse floor of a luxury hotel. However the FBI pick up wind of a hit called in by Sparazza with a strict time limit, a $1,000,000 bounty and cut out Buddy's heart. It is not long before a handful of bounty hunters are heading towards the hotel with one aim – to be the first.

On a transatlantic flight during the day I had time for one more film before landing. As I was just trying to relax I was looking for undemanding stuff just to distract and entertain me. The film I watched first was Shooter and I mention this deliberately. Shooter was only an OK film but what it did was lay out its stall and make it very clear what it was going to do and how it was going to do it – not necessarily in terms of plotting but more in terms of style and approach. It wasn't great but it worked. I assumed that Smokin' Aces would do the same as the trailer made it look like a comic hit-man film – with hyper filming, lots of stars and lots of action.

Now, if you're thinking that I shouldn't assume then you're right, but this is how the film starts and it is how it is at various stages across the film. However it goes from being a bit like Guy Richie (freeze frames, names on screen etc) to being an all out action fest, with guns everywhere and people surviving the way that they only do in action films. The suddenly in the final third it decides that it not going to be superficially comic or superficially action-packed and suddenly seemed to have an emotional side and expected me to care about the characters and their plights – like it had been a serious drama all along (although I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take the ADD kid with the erection in that context).

In doing this it does still do just about enough to keep a story going but to be honest I started to get bored as it changed tone based on whatever it want to do. Another problem I had with it was the violence – it was very brutal throughout, which I don't have a problem with but the mixed tone meant it was confused. With the comic feel the violent death of characters is really jarring, likewise with the action section – it just seemed too much and made it hard to enjoy. The final turn of tone actually makes the violence work because the extent of it works when you actually are expected to feel it – however by then it was too little too late.

Keeping this in mind it is no surprise that nobody is really that good. Piven goes from ham to tragic figure; it is a nice try but the film doesn't go with him and he is left exposed. Reynolds is reasonably good on the level he works on, a good presence – I've never seen him in anything that good but I generally like him when I see him. Affleck, Berg, Garcia, Liotta and a few others are solid enough but not anything special. Keys is good-looking but she is helped by Henson who is sassy and cute at the same time. The real stand out for me was Common. He dropped out of a big tour to make this and I felt bad that he seemed to be going down the "rapper goes to Hollywood to be in action movie" path. However he is actually one of the few who impressed me; not throughout the film perhaps but in the one scene he has with Piven in the bathroom I did think that he showed potential to do more than just be in this sort of thing. Time will tell if he can move away form just being a good looking guy with a deep voice, but he did seem in touch with his character here.

Overall though, the film is nothing to write home about. With an inconsistent approach that sees approach markedly changed abruptly not once but twice, the film is hard to stick with. It probably offers enough noise and narrative to please those looking for noise and violence but personally I was disappointed and found it hard to care that much about.