Smokin' Aces (R, 2007)

SMOKIN' ACES revolves around a Vegas card trickster named Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven). An odious, self-absorbed, and emotionally weak Vegas "celebrity," Buddy's the sort of stereotypical character that other gangster/cop movies set off as secondary. But here, Buddy -- in a fit of fear for his life -- decides to give up his mob associates to the feds, which means he's now the target of any number of killers, all seeking the $1 million prize offered by aging mafioso Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin).

The third film directed by Joe Carnahan (his last film, Narc, was a darkly evocative consideration of masculine intimacy and loyalties), Smokin' Aces offers broadly differentiated assassins who compete with reckless, ugly abandon.

Its incomplete list of players doesn't quite indicate the pile-on of firepower that will converge for the final showdown -- not to mention the convolutions of plot that draw everyone to the same location (betrayals, mishaps, sinister designs, etc.). Repetitive and unsurprising, the movie careens along with a galumphing zip, unabashed about its lack of sense even as it sets up a "clever" payoff that's visible from a mile away. Most of the characters have just enough screen time to mouth off with some venom, then die spectacularly.