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Review of “Smokin’Aces”

Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson playing lesbian assassins would be reason enough to see a movie – and in the case of Smokin’ Aces, if it were true, it would be the only reason to see this film. Unfortunately, it’s not: Keys’ character may be gay, based on one easy-to-miss comment, but the romantic lesbian feelings expressed by Henson’s character remain entirely unrequited.

Advertising this film as containing lesbians may serve to attract an audience of heterosexual males prone to fantasies including lesbian hit women, but Smokin’Aces‘ lesbian content remains just that-a fantasy, and this is only one of many promises the film makes but fails to deliver.

Smokin’ Aces opens with FBI agents Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) staking out the house of notorious, and terminally ill, mob boss Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin). They overhear a conversation between two of Sparazza’s subordinates who have learned that Sparazza has promised to pay a mysterious Swede $1,000,000 to kill a Las Vegas entertainer with mob ties, Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven).

The two plan to double-cross Sparazza by dispatching killers of their own to beat the Swede to the murder and collect the money themselves. There is one catch – Sparazza wants Israel ‘s heart removed from his body and delivered to him.

In order to double-cross their boss, the mobsters turn to Loretta Wyman (Davenia McFadden, who did play a lesbian in Stranger Inside), responsible for securing jobs for Georgia Sykes (Keyes) and Sharice Watters (Henson) a pair of assassins with reputations as highly skilled hit women. While its no surprise to see lesbian, or possibly lesbian, characters who are also murderers, Sykes and Watters, although they kill for a living, rate low on the psychotic scale in this film.

Joining them in the race to find Israel is Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), a bail bondsman, Pasquale Acosta, (Nestor Carbonell) a man famous for his torture techniques and for chewing his fingers to the bone to avoid being fingerprinted, Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) a master of disguise, and most deranged of all, three Neo-Nazi brothers called the Tremors (Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, and Maury Sterling). Far from being stable himself, Israel is a drug addicted man of excess; the audience first meets him as he wakes up in his suite surrounded by drug paraphernalia and a handful of passed-out mostly naked women.

Sykes and Watters plan to gain access to Israel ‘s penthouse suite by having Sykes dress as a prostitute and join the women Israel regularly summons to his room. Meanwhile, Watters will remain in a room at a neighboring hotel and provide backup to Sykes by manning a large gun aimed at the penthouse. When they go to book a room in the hotel, the clerk asks them if they would like one bed or two. Sykes answers that they are not together and they would like two beds, while Watters starts joking with her and says, “Baby, why are you being like that?”

The group of prostitutes that has just left Israel’s room parades by them and Watters expresses her disgust to the clerk, telling her it is because of such women that men do not respect women. She begins to raise her voice and make a scene; when Sykes attempts to quiet her she says, “What? She’s sleeping, I’m trying to wake this bitch up.” Possibly designed to reflect as many lesbian stereotypes as possible, Watters is both a dangerous killer as well as an unstable ultra-feminist. Sykes has no patience for this, rolls her eyes, and requests a key to the mini-bar.

Watters’ position is hypocritical as she stands to benefit from Sykes dressing as a prostitute and moments later is clearly excited by watching Sykes change into her prostitute costume. Sykes’ sexuality remains largely a mystery throughout the film; the only hint that she may be a lesbian occurs when Watters asks her if she is “still messing around with that light-skinned girl?” and when Sykes answers no, Watters tells her, “Its ok, we have all the love we need right here.”

Whatever Sykes’ exact position is, it is clear she does not return Watters’ interest.

The film degenerates into a rapid succession of violent scenes as the assassins kill each other, innocent hotel employees, and several FBI agents, including Carruthers, as they try to gain access to the penthouse to kill Israel, who spends his time consuming increasing amounts of cocaine.

At one point, Sykes and Watters hear gunshots coming from the penthouse, and Watters is sure someone has beaten them to Israel. She wants to give up, telling Sykes they could stay in Tahoe, gamble, have fun, and maybe even stay the night. Sykes is not convinced, and is determined to reach the penthouse and kill Israel.

After a series of unlikely events, Sykes ends up in an elevator with Carruthers and Acosta after the two men have shot each other and are both dying. The elevator opens, she is greeted by shots from the FBI and is hit despite help from Watters in the neighboring hotel. After getting shot, Sykes has trouble talking to Watters through their radio and she disconnects it. Watters assumes she was killed and becomes despondent, she shoots wildly and erratically from her window and gives away her position.

She begins crying and calling Sykes’ name and is discovered and killed because rather than fleeing, she remains in the hotel room crying. As a final insult, the last thing she sees before dying is Sykes leaving the hotel in the arms of Israel ‘s bodyguard (Common) whom Sykes found, and flirted heavily with, on the penthouse floor.

Apparently, it is not enough for Watters to suffer through unrequited feelings for Sykes; she ends up paying for these feelings with her life.

This ending, which leaves one lesbian character dead and the other maybe-lesbian character in the arms of a man, is quite a disappointment given all the reports promising a lesbian love affair involving Keys’ character.

In addition to its many other flaws, Smokin’ Aces is poorly written. The characters have no depth and what masquerades as plot is merely one violent murder after the next. As explained, lecture-style, at the end of the film by FBI agent (Alex Garcia), the entire hunt for Israel was spurred by a colossal convoluted misunderstanding which makes even less sense than Alica Keys calling her character a lesbian.

Smokin’ Aces confuses a complicated and unlikely conclusion with an intelligent plot and seems to think a star-studded cast will forgive the film’s many shortcomings.

But nothing about this movie is smokin’, least of all its lesbian content. Save your time and money and skip this one.

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