Thursday, April 30, 2015

Snake Eyes (1998)

Corrupt cop Rick Santoro spends his time shaking down criminals and cheating on his wife.  But when his best friend Kevin, a Naval Officer, ends up in charge of security for the Secretary of Defense at a big boxing match, Rick ends up ringside when the Secretary is shot.

Hoping to catch the assassin, the arena doors are shut to keep people from leaving. But no one seems to notice the blood spattered woman who was sitting next to Rick and talking to the Secretary when he was shot.

Rick pulls rank and takes over the investigation since Kevin had essentially deserted his post at the time of the shooting. He'd been chasing after a suspicious woman who ran off when he asked to see her ticket for a ringside seat.  Since Rick is crooked, he has no problem doctoring the truth to protect his buddy Kevin.

Meanwhile our blood spattered woman has changed clothes and is blind as a bat due to the loss of her glasses, which is right out of Scooby Doo. Since she can't see a foot in front of her, it's going to be hard to elude the people looking for her.

There's nothing special about this movie except the opening shot. The film opens with a long shot of Cage walking through the arena, backstage, threatening a crook, moving back through the arena and taking his seat, all while interacting with others in the crowd or on the phone.  Now there are some fast pans to the side where the cuts can be hidden, but it appears seamless and is an impressively planned out way to start the film.  That's one of the things I miss about modern movies. They rarely use a long one shot of people acting off each other. It's mostly quick cuts. So enjoy crazy Cage and his overacting and the ridiculous convenient ending.

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