Amazon.com video review:
Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller is largely an exercise in airing out
his orchestral, oversized visual style (think of his Blowout,
Body Double,
or Raising Cain) for the heck of it. The far-fetched story features
Nicolas
Cage as a crooked police detective attending a championship boxing match at
which the Secretary of Defense is assassinated. The unfortunate Secretary's
right-hand man (Gary Sinise) happens to be Cage's old friend,
a fact that complicates the cop's efforts to reconstruct the crime from
conflicting accounts--a directorial strategy bearing similarities to Kurosawa's
Rashomon. The outrageousness of the scenario essentially gives De
Palma permission to construct a baroque cathedral of spectacular camera
stunts, which (he well knows) are inevitably more interesting than the
hoary
conspiracy plot. (The opening scene alone, which runs on for a number of
minutes and consists of one, unbroken shot that moves in from the street,
following Cage up and down stairs, and in and out of rooms until finally
ending ringside at the match, is breathtaking.) The shifting
points of view--based on the contradictory statements of witnesses--also
give De Palma
license to get creative with camera angles and scene rearrangements.
The
script bogs down in the third act, but De Palma is just revving up for a
big, operatic finish that is absolutely gratuitous but undeniably
impressive.
Yes, it's style over substance in Snake Eyes, but what style we're
talking
about.--Tom Keogh
Amazon.com video review:
Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller is largely an exercise in airing out
his orchestral, oversized visual style (think of his Blowout,
Body Double,
or Raising Cain) for the heck of it. The far-fetched story features
Nicolas
Cage as a crooked police detective attending a championship boxing match at
which the Secretary of Defense is assassinated. The unfortunate Secretary's
right-hand man (Gary Sinise) happens to be Cage's old friend,
a fact that complicates the cop's efforts to reconstruct the crime from
conflicting accounts--a directorial strategy bearing similarities to Kurosawa's
Rashomon. The outrageousness of the scenario essentially gives De
Palma permission to construct a baroque cathedral of spectacular camera
stunts, which (he well knows) are inevitably more interesting than the
hoary
conspiracy plot. (The opening scene alone, which runs on for a number of
minutes and consists of one, unbroken shot that moves in from the street,
following Cage up and down stairs, and in and out of rooms until finally
ending ringside at the match, is breathtaking.) The shifting
points of view--based on the contradictory statements of witnesses--also
give De Palma
license to get creative with camera angles and scene rearrangements.
The
script bogs down in the third act, but De Palma is just revving up for a
big, operatic finish that is absolutely gratuitous but undeniably
impressive.
Yes, it's style over substance in Snake Eyes, but what style we're
talking
about. --Tom Keogh
