SNAKE EYES (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Brian DePalma Writer: David Koepp (story by Brian DePalma and David Koepp) Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, Stan Shaw, Kevin Dunn, John Heard, Joel Fabiani, Chip Zien, David Higgins, Luis Guzmán
"Snake Eyes" is the most aggravating kind of movie: the kind that shows so much potential then becomes unbelievably disappointing. It's not just because this is a Brian DePalma film, and since he's a great director and one who's films are always greeted with at least some fanfare. And it's not even because this was a film starring Nicolas Cage and since he gives a brauvara performance, this film is hardly worth his talents. It's worse than that. It's aggravating for the sole reason that its story could be so much more, could be totally intelligent, and it opens up with absolutely no subtlety that it will be handled complexly and intensely...then at one point in the movie makes on wrong turn that leads it to the Hall of Fame of Half-Assedness. Or more deservedly, the Hall of Fame of the Eighth-Assedness.
In certain circles, "Snake Eyes" was being advertised as a kind of modern day version of Kurosawa's classic "Rashomon," where a crime is told from the four different (and I mean different) perspectives, and it looks as though it may actually be just like this with the opening, which, I might add, is superb. In one very very very long steadicam shot, we meet the protagonist, crooked Atlantic City detective, Rick Santoro (Cage), and follow him before a boxing match as he talks on his cell phone with his wife, interupts a pay-per-view event on TV, chases down a gambler, enters the arena all pumped up for the fight, sits down and talks with his bud, Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise, who's character should not be confused with that of actor Kevin Dunn, who's also in this), and watches as it happens.
There's a big name in the crowd, and that's the Secretary of Defense, Charles Kirkland (Joel Fabiani), who's sitting behind Rick, and who gets shot a second after the Heavyweight Champion, Lincoln Tyler (Stan Shaw), is knocked out. This all happens in the opening shot, and it creates so many red herrings and possibilities of what happened that it opens this scene up for close examination and total deconstruction. What really happened, this film asks, and it sets this film up extremely well for when Rick begins to question people and get different perspectives on the scene...and discovers there's a very good possibility it was a conspiracy.
As we follow Rick trying to learn of more information, we also meet a woman who was talking to Kirkland before he was shot (Carla Gugino), and who flees the scene in a panic, and tries to hide from the cops in the arena and the adjacent casino/hotel since the cops have blocked off the doors so they can get witness' takes on what happened.
This is all going pretty fine and dandy, and it's extremely interesting to watch...then it takes one wrong step. We follow the wrong character, and we learn of the answer to the mystery too early on, and way before Rick can find it out. But that's not the worst part of it: it's that it's the one person you didn't think it would be because he was too obviously supposed to be the red herring, the one you didn't think did it because it would be stupid and cliched of that person to be behind it.
It only gets worse: the film turns into a chase film about half way through the film, and since we already know what happened, we can't rely on Rick's investigation to be all that interesting. It's as if the film ran out of the guts to be really complex and original about a third of the way in, and decided to just fall back on an easy way out, and that just happens to mean that it has to become less and less credible. Events become more and more proposterous, and by the end, the film has decided to rely on the worst offender in mysteries like this: the deux ex machina. That's where some outside intereference brings the film to a sudden conclusion and makes everything okay. This time, it's a hurricane, an out-of-control police car, and a big round ball that adorned the arena.
What went wrong? DePalma and the screenwriter, David Koepp, are extremely credible people in their respective fields, and have been known for bringing life and complexity to mysteries such as this. DePalma, who idolizes Hitchcock to death, has done many a film like this, such as his masterpiece, "Blow Out," where a movie soundman uses movie elements to uncover a conspiracy piece by piece. But granted, DePalma at least makes it intriguing to watch, what with his over-the-top shot set-ups, notably the beginning and a sequence where the camera pans over top of a bunch of rooms in the hotel, forgetting anything about boundaries. At least his direction makes up partly for it.
Then there's Koepp, who showed such great ability at making a character's flaws come to life like he did in DePalma's earlier "Carlito's Way," a film that dove right into the life and past of its character and examined him extremely well. He can write a flawed character, but his Rick Santoro seems to be just a half-assed effort. He's flawed, and we can see redemption if the story wasn't so formulaic. A scene towards the end where he has to make a fatal decision is cheapened by the fact that his answer has no emotional buildup. He may as well have said the opposite of what he says; it would have at least gone with what the character was like.
This is the most disappointing kind of film because it promises intelligence and complexity, because it promises disection of a flawed character and perhaps even redemption, then pulls the rug from under us just as we were about to be convinced it would be able to go all the way. As I was watching the first half hour, I couldn't wait to see how the mystery would be unearthed, how many different perspectives he'd be given, and perhaps he'd have to make a choice between who's he has to believe. Now there's a film. Unfortunately, the film has two major deux ex machinas: one in the disasterous ending; the other, about a half hour in when the film goes into autopilot and becomes a stale and recycled piece of crap we've seen all too much before, but never from someone like DePalma.
MY RATING (out of 4): *1/2
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