MOVIE: Smokin' Aces

Smokin' Aces is a loud hard-hitting film that has the best action scenes of the year.

With the Mob putting a 1 million dollar bounty on Buddy "Aces" Israel, a Las Vegas performer. The wildest, crazy and unwilling hit men and women come to collect on that bounty. On that note all is fair game.

Let me start off say many of the actors in Smokin' Aces has some of the best, from Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven and many more this is truly a great cast. With even in her debut to film I thought Alicia Keys did an OK job. The characters that these people play are very original from a group of brothers "The Tremors" from a weird kid that seriously needs some Ritalin. That is what set some of the characters in Smokin' Aces apart from some of the generic characters we would see from other Crime stories that use a group of different types of hit men. Out of all the actors only two stood out for me, one is Jeremy Pivien as Buddy Israel he is really convincing from begin coked up and on the brink of destruction. The other was Jason Bateman who played Rip Reed a lawyer Jason didn't have that much screen time but on the part he was in and the dialogue was hilarious.

With that said the story was a good well rounded one they did a good job at drawing out each character and gave each one a good amount of screen time. Most other stories like this while its gets towards the climax of the story the parts become clear and you can figure out what going to happen and take away the reward, this film doesn't do that it has many twists and turns that will have you on the edge of your seat. The one thing I had an issues with during the viewing was with e editing (or maybe not?) was that I'm not sure if they cut out a lot of the action sequences. For example one of the Tremor brothers had at the beginning had an axe on the back of him and has they cut between other shots the axe is gone, while I don't know if he used it or anything. Personally that is a issue that I spot, but to other I know that won't bother them and I can probably get over it after a couple more viewings.

If someone were to watch just the trailer, and not read the plot outline or the synopsis you could expect to see a lot of action in this picture. That's one thing I was disappointed about, was that it did have great action but very little of it but yet that give you more room to enjoy the story. Overall that movie is fun to watch its not going to win any awards but to sit back and enjoy this one is it. I recommend that you should go and see this film.

Here is the Smokin' Aces Trailer:

DVD: Bandidas

Bandidas, is a film setting around the western days, in Mexico. Bandidas as the two greatest Spanish actresses of this century.

The story of Bandidas, is a story about the American country is trying to make room for the railroad expanding from the United States all the way into Mexico, the antagonist Dwight Yoakam who plays Tyler Jackson and he is buying up all the land for the United States. During this time, Jackson and his men take of life of Salma Hayek character Sara Sandoval father and critically wound Penélope Cruz character Maria Alvarez father both woman team up and begin to take back from Tyler Jackson, along the way the run into Quentin Cooke who is here to find out who killed Sara Sandoval's father.

Let me start off from saying the film the idea of this film is a great idea, bringing these two great actresses to star in a western is a great film idea. Bandidas from the credits seems to a a big blockbuster, with on of my favorite writers in the industry Luc Besson who is known for the works of Leon: The Professional, La Femme Nikita, Fifth Element and the Transporter and its sequel he is both Writing and Producing Bandidas. Along with that we have both Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek who are great actresses and in my opinion have great chemistry on screen. The one part that I was dissappointed about was Steve Zahn's character Quentin Cooke, I thought that his part in the film was not necessary needed I felt that you could have had more character building parts with Penélope and Salma, but that's just my opinion.

The story and the feel of Bandidas seem to be a lot like the Jackie Chan and Owen Weilson's Shanghai Noon where its based in the same time period and the action seems to be very good, but Bandidas doesn't have the great martial artist Jackie Chan to make great fight scenes that are in Shanghai Noon yet overall the movie does good on the action part.

Overall Bandidas, I had fun watching. If you want to watch a film and relax in the process Bandidas as it. It contain good action, the writing in the film is mediocre, but everything balances each other out and I would recommend this film anytime. Its a thumbs up.

DVD

Specs.

Bandidas comes in both Widescreen and Full-screen formats, so the video differs on which way you watch the film in. The audio comes in English 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Digital Surround Sound, and come with both English and Spanish subtitles and is 92 minutes.

Special Features Include:

• Audio Commentary by Selma Hayek and Penélope Cruz
• A Burning up the set with Selma and Penélope featurette

This DVD although doesn't contain that much I would have loved to see more than this for the film. I think the commentary is decent, and the featurette is a good ten minute feature but it nothing that should change anything. The DVD is nothing that special, but I would think that if you like either of these two actresses or is a big fan of westerns then this is a buy, other that that its a rent at least.