Director Brian De Palma has finally done it - he's made the first empty stylistic exercise of his career. Sure, there are bravura camera moves, superbly edited climaxes and an astounding opening sequence that can stand on its own as a classic, but what else is there?
"Snake Eyes" stars Nicolas Cage as an unctuous, loud, obnoxious cop named Rick Santoro (wearing what appears to be the same snakeskin leather jacket from "Wild at Heart") who always accepts bribes from cops and crooks, and strolls through his Atlantic City casino turf as if he owned it. During a championship bowling match, the U.S. Secretary of Defense is assassinated, and all chaos ensues. Santoro takes charge of the investigation. But who killed the Secretary of Defense? And who was the blonde sitting next to him? Was the boxing champ who went down behind it? Or was it Santoro's best friend (Gary Sinise)? If you've seen one conspiracy film, you've seen them all.
"Snake Eyes" is an often visually inventive film - the extraordinary opening sequence is one seemingly 20-minute long take (there is one match cut that I caught) that introduces us to the main characters and everything leading up to the assassination. And yet for all the tricks "Snake Eyes" has up its sleeve, there is nothing for us to chew on afterwards. The unusually simple plot (lazily written by David Koepp) relies on various implausibilities - e.g., how could 14,000 eyewitnesses and various police and security officers not notice a blonde woman with a blood-covered white dress? And I guessed who the perpetrator of this assassination was before it took place.
"Snake Eyes" is the type of film that is nice to look at, but you can anticipate its every preconceived move.
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