SNAKE EYES
Release Date: August 7, 1998 Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, John Heard, Stan Shaw, Joel Fabiani Directed by: Brian De Palma Distributed by: Paramount Pictures MPAA Rating: R (violence, language) URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/snake.htm
The sort of post-Cold War espionage suspense that Brian De Palma cultivated in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was a vivid brand, designed to excite and engage. And for the most part, it worked. American moviegoers, reluctant to accept the end of tensions with the former Soviet Union, search for new shady characters on an internation scale. New neo-Nazi states for our operatives to go sneaking into with gear that might well be found on an episode of STAR TREK. Unfortunately for De Palma, the energy and charisma of such settings are so far removed from an Atlantic City casino-hotel, that SNAKE EYES never has a chance to be top-notch suspense.
De Palma, along with screenwriter David Koepp (both JURASSIC PARK features), are heavy on the present-day sci-fi, and so its understandable that they might attempt to sneak a bit of it into a common murder mystery. In fact, it seems that everyone - cast and crew - except for Nicolas Cage has it from that angle. Cage, on the other hand, stubbornly plays policeman Rick Santoro as a man with a bit of change and an addiction to gambling on fights. The good detective goes to the heavyweight title fight, in the company of his friend, Commander Kevin Dunn (Gary Sinise, who is sinister as ever), as well as the Secretary of Defense. As the knockout punch whistles across the ring, though, so does a killer's bullet - winging the woman next to Santoro and killing the Secretary. Suddenly Santoro is sitting at a murder scene, surrounded by 14,000 suspects.
With little or no work, Dunn finds the shooter and kills him in the struggle. Santoro's not happy, though, for two reasons: the woman next to him ran off too soon, and the supposedly KO'd boxer's head jerked up at the sound of the shot. Santoro's ensuing detective work leads him to find scandal in the ring and in the Department of Defense. The first of the two might be a plausible path for the story to follow, because for the first thirty minutes the hyped-crowd atmosphere surrounds the entire thing. But instead, Koepp takes it a different direction, trying to squeeze in a muddled and confusing plot about faulty test missiles and their financial benefit to the casino's new owner. It's during the revelation of this plot that the movie spins unreasonably far from its opening path and loses quite a bit of the steam it had built up.
Playing out on the screen, though, the movie looks and feels a lot better than it sounds. De Palma chooses an interesting style of photography, in which events coinciding play out side by side. This gives SNAKE EYES a much more dynamic real-time feel that helps the audience through the tangled-up plot. Finally, the second plotline - the Department of Defense scandal - makes the murder mystery much deeper than it has to be, causing the audience to become disinterested. This disinterest runs deep enough so that by the time the ending comes - no less than twice - everyone watching has lost appreciation for why the characters are there or even what their motivations are. Overall, SNAKE EYES' intent was in the right place, but was simply misled by adding too many ingredients to what should have been a simple mix.
FINAL AWARD FOR "SNAKE EYES": 2.5 stars - an enjoyable movie.
-- Craig Roush kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio
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