# Snake Eyes (1998)

### reviewed by
Edward Johnson-Ott

Snake Eyes (1998) Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Kevin Dunn, Carla Gugino, Luis Guzman, John Heard, Stan Shaw. Screenplay by David Koepp. Directed by Brian De Palma. 100 minutes Rated R, 2.5 stars (out of five stars)

"Snake Eyes" employs split screens, shots from various characters' points of view and a nifty scene where the camera moves overhead to where the ceiling should be and glides from room-to-room, providing aerial shots of the people below. Oh, and the movie also features a murder mystery. It's sad when a director's camera techniques are more memorable than the film they should be serving, which is exactly what happens in Brian De Palma's latest thriller.

De Palma, who directed such fare as "Carrie," "Dressed To Kill," "Body Double," "The Untouchables," "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Mission Impossible," is well-known for his in-your-face approach to storytelling. He's also renown (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) for "paying homage" to various directors through his filmmaking methods. He certainly directs "Snake Eyes" with high style, although he appears to have been so busy with flourishes that he neglected to build a solid film beneath them.

The makings for a great thriller are there. Set in an Atlantic City casino, where a pay-per-view boxing match has begun while a hurricane rages outside, the story centers around the murder of a high-ranking government official. As heavyweight champion Lincoln Tyler (Stan Shaw) struggles to defend his title, shots ring out in the vast auditorium and the Secretary of Defense falls dead to the floor.

Two men take charge of the situation, sleazy local cop Nick Santoro (Nicholas Cage) and his best friend since childhood, Major Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), who was assigned to protect the Secretary. As they seal off the huge building to begin their investigation, a terrified young woman with blood on her clothing desperately tries to find a way out of the casino. The men marshal their forces and the chase is on.

De Palma begins the story with a nod to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope," using camera tricks to make the first few minutes of the film look like one extremely long continuous shot. Sure, the effect is striking, but while De Palma was occupied creating eye candy, a lot of bad acting slipped through the lens of his magic camera.

Nicolas Cage is the worst culprit, hamming it up terribly as the smarmy boardwalk cop. Whooping and mugging in the opening scenes like a coked-up version of "Ernest Goes To Camp's" Jim Varney, Cage is flat-out embarrassing. No one behaving this way would have any credibility as an officer, even in Atlantic City. To add insult to injury, we're told this boob aspires to the office of mayor. Fat chance, Vern.

>From his first appearance in a open-collared Hawaiian shirt, with gold chains floating on his mat of chest hair (actually, Cage's body hair has now grown thick enough to officially qualify as a pelt), it's obvious that the Oscar-winning actor has decided to turn in a performance that makes his work as the villain in "Face/Off" look subtle. To be fair, he tones it down as the film progresses, but by then the damage is done.

Meanwhile, Gary Sinise plays yet another fiercely intensive, control- freak leader. In interviews, the gifted actor says he accepts films like "Snake Eyes" to fund his theatrical projects. That's wonderfully candid, but doesn't excuse wasting his skills with tiresome stereotypes like this.

Despite Cage and Sinise's failings, the investigation of the murder is very intriguing...for a while. De Palma shows the incident from several characters' points of view, each adding a little more insight into what really happened. He even examines the security camera recordings. It all leads to a major revelation that most viewers will have figured out minutes earlier.

Particularly annoying is De Palma's decision to reveal the villain relatively early in the film. After presenting lead characters who aren't likable, then prematurely spilling the beans on the identity of the bad guy, it's hard to remain interested in what happens during the remainder of the story, even with all of De Palma's inventive camera work. It's like watching somebody else put together a picture puzzle. When you're not personally involved, viewing the assembly process grows awfully tedious.

Adding insult to insult, De Palma wraps the picture up with an outrageously bad ending. Reportedly, a huge special effects shot was cut from the climax of "Snake Eyes" due to poor reactions from audiences at test screenings. It couldn't have been worse than what we see in the edited version. After more than an hour and a half of watching the forces of good and bad fight it out, De Palma resolves the elaborate battle with an act of pure chance. Ending the cat and mouse game with a burst of ingenious thinking would have been fine. Closing the story with a triumph of the human spirit over adversity would have been acceptable. But pure dumb luck? That's a hack ending from a director who should know better.

    © 1998 Ed Johnson-Ott

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