SNAKE EYES (Paramount) Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, John Heard, Stan Shaw, Kevin Dunn. Screenplay: David Koepp. Producer: Brian DePalma. Director: Brian DePalma. MPAA Rating: R (violence, drug use, sexual innuendo, profanity) Running Time: 99 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Did you ever get the feeling that Brian DePalma designs entire films around set pieces he thinks would be really cool? Think about MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- can you recall more than a few scattered seconds aside from the computer room break-in and the train tunnel finale? Even DePalma's strongest efforts like CARRIE and THE UNTOUCHABLES hit their stride when he was showing off bravura bits like the prom night apocalypse and the train station steps shootout, respectively. The trivial business of building a story between cool sequences frequently seems to bore him; if there were a directorial equivalent for "script doctor," he'd probably be all over it.
SNAKE EYES opens with a typically flashy piece of DePalmannerism, a 20-minute, single-take Steadicam shot following Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) as he makes his way through a sporting arena on the night of a heavyweight championship fight. Santoro is a gleefully corrupt Atlantic City police detective, invited to the fight by Naval Commander Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), Santoro's old school buddy and the head of security for the Secretary of Defense (Joel Fabiani). But something goes wrong in the first round: two mysterious women cause distractions, the champ (Stan Shaw) goes down, a sniper takes out the Secretary, and the crowd goes crazy. The only question is what really happened, and whose perspective on the events can be trusted.
That opening reel is a nice piece of work, and an ideal showcase for Cage at his bug-eyed, manically-grinning finest. Santoro glides through the arena like an animal protecting his turf, DePalma watching him get anything and anywhere he wants with a strut, an attitude and the flash of a badge. There's a kinetic artistry to the scene as DePalma captures the excitement at the event, the shark-like constant motion of our protagonist, and the unstable nature of the events about to occur. We recognize instantly that for every pie in Atlantic City, there's Rick Santoro with his fingers deeply immersed or doing his best to dip them in. We also recognize that somewhere in the dizzying scene are the clues to what will come next.
What will come next is an investigation of the shoting which often feels like an afterthought. The story's arc is clearly designed to lead Santoro towards a redemptive choice -- cash vs. The Right Thing -- but it seems to take an awful lot longer than 90 minutes to get there. And that's not to say that SNAKE EYES doesn't move. In fact, DePalma rarely stops moving, mixing up extended point-of-view sequences with tautly-edited pursuits, throwing in a drifting overhead pan through a series of hotel rooms for good measure. SNAKE EYES has technical virtuosity and sheer forward momentum to spare. What's missing is heart, a reason to care about stringing DePalma's shiny individual baubles together into cinematic jewelry.
By the climax, DePalma seems to have lost all focus on making SNAKE EYES a redemption thriller, hinging a pivotal sequence on a turn of the weather. Between that stormy sequence, the extended speeches in which the villains explain their motivation, and the tagged-on romantic coda, you may find yourself wondering what the point of it all could be. Then the answer comes back: it was an opportunity for Brian DePalma to film a 20-minute single-take Steadicam shot. I suppose SNAKE EYES could satisfy an audience as a display of craftsmanship, but that really defines why so few of DePalma's films satisfy as stories. He's not really a film-maker. He's a scene-maker.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 fumbling dice: 5.
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