Definitions.

sadistic - adj: deriving pleasure or sexual gratification from inflicting pain on another

pornography - noun: creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire

(source: dictionary.com; emphasis mine)

This weeks movie: Smokin' Aces (2007)

Rated: R (violence, gore, language, sexual situations, nudity, drug use, etc., etc.)

Actors/Actresses of note: Ben Affleck, Alicia Keyes, Andy Garcia

The plot is as follows: Buddy Israel is a mobster who is about to turn on his fellow mobsters, including mob boss Primo Sparazza. Given that the feds want him alive, the mob wants him dead, and the cops want him for parole violations, all sorts of people converge on a hotel in Reno to either take him out, or, well, take him out.

The review is as follows: Honestly I couldn't write this review at first as I couldn't finish the movie. But, for the sake of my journalistic integrity, I sat down for the last fifteen minutes or so, desperately hoping the movie redeemed itself. It didn't. This is porn for sadists. You've been warned.

It's bad enough that there are no likable characters in this film. But, being a movie full of base characters, this is almost expected. Still, doesn't help. Everyone, from the Ritalin-soaked ten-year-old karate kid to the three insane German hitmen, has no redeeming qualities. Either you didn't care for them one way or the other, or you wanted them dead. These characters do not a good movie make.

It also doesn't help that the name on top of the marquee (Affleck) plays a character whose sole purpose is to put forth exposition, then, much like Drew Barrymore's character in Scream, dies. The name shouldn't be there if he's not in the whole movie. Maybe that's more personal preference, but anyone going to this movie expecting Ben there in the final scene will be sorely disappointed.

Much like this review, the movie can't stay on one particular theme, genre, or idea for very long. At times it's a gore-filled snuff film, while at others it plays like something resembling a love story, and at other times it so desperately wants to be The Usual Suspects. Does it have a twist? Yes, actually, it has two. One is rather obvious, and the second doesn't really carry the impact that The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense did.

If there was anything redeeming about this movie, it's that Ryan Reynolds is actually good outside of the frat-boy sex comedy. Go fig.

Flotsam:

• Ryan Reynold's performance.

Jetsam:

• Everything else.

Final rating: 0 out of 5 bullet-ridden corpses. It's not worth watching.

-D out.