Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin's Ball Options

[Randy Pecker]

The original Smokin' Aces was the kind of movie that "the snobs" can't like unless The New York Times tells them that the movie is okay to like.

I first saw Terminator in Philadelphia with a mostly Black audience and the audience went wild watching the movie. I then saw the move again in "Crystal City, Virginia" and, not one person in the audience reacted to the movie, at all. I even heard comments in the audience about how the movie was the dumbest thing they'd ever seen. REMEMBER, Blade Runner was not a hit movie when it was first released. There are a whole lot of classic / cult movies that The Masses don't catch onto for DECADES.

Smokin' Aces is the Quentin Tarantino Movie Tarantino didn't direct

Smokin' Aces was directed by Joe Carnahan. However,

If you watch closely and pay attention, you can see that Smokin' Aces has classic Tarantino DNA, it has:

1. The insider Black Culture dialogue and relationships; and

2. Extreme, outrageous, out of the blue violence.

Smokin' Aces has a Black Female Assassin who is using a fucking anti-tank rifle from her hotel building to try to kill a guy in the hotel building across the street from her hotel. Smokin Aces has a guy who manipulates Ben Affleck's mouth when Affleck is laying on the ground dead to make it seem as though dead Affleck is answering him. I expected there to be "an out take" from this scene of Affleck cracking up, but there wasn't one on the DVD of the movie I saw.

The title Smokin' Aces refers to The Mob putting out an open contract on the life of a Vegas Magician named Aces (Jeremy Piven). Essentially, every professional hit man and hit woman of note is trying to be the first person to kill Aces, who his hold up in a hotel room sexing and drugging. The FBI is trying to protect Aces but the hitmen are killing each other and everyone else they run into.

Close Quarters Combat. I think it is very "interesting" when two guys fighting are put in a very small space. There is some movie with two guys "kung foo-ing" each other in a very small room. And, in Smokin' Aces, two guys start shooting at each other in an elevator.

I tell ya, between the giant anti-tank gun and those guys going at it with guns in an elevator ... you just can't get much more Tarantino.

Smokin' Aces II

Those who hit play expecting a "true" sequel to Smokin' Aces may find themselves confused and disappointed. As far as I can tell, the sequel has nothing to do with its predecessor aside from the appearance of two minor-but-colorful assassins. (I'll leave it to the fans to discover who's back for Part 2.) But the plot is pretty much the same as the original, and one of the main characters does play with a deck of cards pretty often. Beyond that, Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin's Ball (previously known as Smokin' Aces 2: Blowback, incidentally) is a perfectly stand-alone action flick. Cinematical