SNAKE EYES
CAST: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Cugino
SCR: David Koepp
DIR: Brian De Palma
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
The 98-minute "Snake Eyes," as directed by flashy schlock virtuoso Brian De Palma, concerns itself with a political assassination on the floor of a casino-side boxing ring during a championship fight.
The introduction is amazing: a continuous 13-minute tracking shot that follows firecracker cop Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage in wild mode) as he wheels, deals, gambles, flirts, chases down a lowlife, juggles calls from both wife and girlfriend, and finally makes his way to his waiting ringside seat. The sheer amount of information and technical prowess is quite impressive.
But after such a boffo intro, David Keopp's script begins to buckle under the weight of its own ambitions and a hundred different potentially interesting elements are all introduced, only to be dropped.
Santoro points out that since there are 14,000 people present, then there are 14,000 potential witnesses. Can you say "cinematic potential"? Restraining 14,000 pissed off people, some of whom are involved in a labyrinthine assassination plot. But after they "seal off the exits", amazingly, those 14,000 people just sort of scatter.
The inconsistancies continue. None of the fringe characters seem to realize that a political figure was present, despite a spotlight introduction early on. Nobody seems to realize that the boxing champ is going to take a dive, even though he practically crumbles to tears seconds before.
This is a political assassination, yet the only fed on the case seems to be Cage's boyhood pal, played by Gary Sinise. These two go way back. Keopp's script makes a point of telling us this little fact as much as possible. Hmmm—could one of these two be the Real Bad Guy? You do the math.
Speaking of math, how did The Mysterious Woman With The Fake Looking Blonde Wig (Carla Gugino) find an empty bathroom to clean the blood off her white outfit when there's 14,000 people denied an exit? And why is she locked in a closet after being the only person to dispel any pertinent information?
I'm sure Cage, De Palma and company were trying really hard to not only give us a crack piece of summer entertainment, but a classic conspiracy caper. They aimed high, but nothing could be done with the disaster of a script they had to work from. Maybe they should have called this one "Crap Shoot".
The video suffers badly from a pan-and-scan cropping, eliminating almost half the theatrical image, a condition corrected by the DVD.
--reviewed by DENNIS WILLIS
Evaluation: C-