Snake Eyes (1998)

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I remember the advertising for this movie was so good, I desperately wanted to go out and see what all the fuss was about. After seeing it, I have to admit—the advertising was much more impressive than the actual flick.

Nicolas Cage stars as a wise-cracking Atlantic City cop who bends the rules when it profits him and who only looks out for himself; he’s placed some big (and dirty) money on a huge boxing match and for the first twenty minutes that’s all we hear about. Gary Sinese is his long-time buddy who, by playing the law enforcement game fairly, is a high-ranking military officer, and an escort to the Secretary of State assigned to protect him from all those crazies in the crowd at Fight Night.

Despite his efforts though, the Secretary of State manages to get shot, and all hell breaks loose when the two have to find out who shot him in a stadium of 14,000 people. Oops, let me take that back: they know exactly who shot him, but suspicious characters all around prompt Cage into thinking that there is something more behind the murder. As different characters tell their stories, we get to see the different ways the characters connect, and which ones are lying and which are telling the truth.

It’s a Brian DePalma film—ooh. But like I said before, it’s disappointing when you get to the end; you get kind of a “that’s it?” feeling, like the damn thing was this huge deal for no big conclusion. It’s partly due to a very poorly constructed final blow-out, and partly because we really don’t care about anyone in the film—Nick Cage’s character isn’t likable (he’s *annoying* in the beginning!!), and we don’t care about the Secretary of State at all, so the only thing that keeps our interest is this mild curiosity in the movie itself. Gary Sinese is good, but this movie doesn’t push him at all. Boo. Disappointing.