Well, they don't make wannabe-Tarantino crap much crappier than this. Writer/director Joe Carnahan joins the ranks of retards that have been ripping off movies made by ripoff artists with his morbidly moronic "Smokin' Aces", a flick about a mob guy (Jeremy Piven) who has a million dollar bounty on his head that every hit man in the land wants to cash in on.

This simple of a premise leaves room for plenty of wacky characters, like diva hit women (Alicia Keys) and neo-Nazi hit men with mohawks and chainsaws, all of whom do really wacky things or spit out wacky dialogue that's just there for the sake of being wacky -- nevermind that it's phucking hollow, forgettable, and tragically trying to be its own take on "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" or whatever stylish crime caper you wanna name that actually had some style. In an attempt to suck the limp johnson of a likely unnoticing Tarantino, Rodriguez, whoever the hell he's trying to nudge elbows with here as a fellow violent movie guy, Carnahan also steals from other movies here (see if you can guess which wacky weapons come from what other old school flicks throughout this stinkbomb) as if just for the sake of looking smooth to anyone who's seen movies shot before 1994 (like, I don't know, "Pulp Fiction"). Or maybe he really thought he would be seen as original. Who the hell knows, this thing is stale shit anyway. If you really feel the need to watch guys shoot each other for an hour and a half, rent something else, there's plenty of good blood-and-guts cinema at your local video store, but really, don't egg this guy on. At least enough of the other ripoffs have been straight forward enough to just be brainless crap, but this one tries to actually be smart at the end with a twist. A what? Who the phuck wanted a twist?

Who gives a plague rat's dick who the hell Buddy Aces is the son of, or who the hell his father REALLY is? Didn't we just watch brainless crap for an hour and twenty minutes? Where is this swelling emotional music coming from all of a sudden, what is Ryan Reynolds doing ranting with bloodshot eyes about ONE guy who got killed in 80 minutes of killing, and why am I supposed to feel emotionally attached now to any of these stupid characters? They're just guys saying the f-word enough to be seen as edgy and wacky before they shoot each other, what the hell do I care if they get shot? That's the real head-shaker here, that we don't only want these characters to get shot so we can see the violent crap we knew we wanted when we rented "Smokin' Aces," we want to see them get shot just so we can be sure they'll shut the hell up and stop trying to sound cool with every out-of-touch "cool" line. No luck though, some of these sorry cretins live after getting blown to bits (maybe so they can appear in the sequel that Carnahan thinks everybody is just gonna HAVE to see).

 I actually rented this diarrhea-on-a-disc over "The Queen" because I was afraid "The Queen", a movie about English people, would bore me as much as most movies about English people do. After "Smo-kin' A-cesss" (wow, even the title is trying to say "heyyy, look at me, I'm cool!), I think "The Queen" may have been much like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart... like Uma Thurman had in that wacky-violent movie that was good... the one jackoffs like Joe Jackoff Carnahan have been trying to copy for THIRTEEN PHUCKING YEARS NOW.

Rent "Smokin' Aces" if you're a drunk fraternity guy who likes to yell at the screen just so your friends can watch you yell at the screen. But fast-forward through the end, because it tries to be smart and emotional for some reason, and you don't want your fraternity brothers seeing you like smart or emotional stuff. They might call you a homo.

(one bong - 'cause it's "smokin'")