I saw SnakeEyes (I think that's the official title) last week.
The much-hyped gimmick of the long "uninterrupted"
opening shot is a washout. It's painfully obvious where all the
cuts occur, hidden by special effects. Nevertheless, despite the
fact that the gimmick fails, the opening delivers. It's busy and
noisy and frantic and delivers a lot of information in a short
time and Nicholas Cage acts like a raging lunatic. You know, he
acts just like he was Nicholas Cage.
I used to like DePalma, long ago. His favorite premises are
revisited here, yet again. As seen previously in "Blow
Out" and "Body Double," the hero Cage must keep
rethinking, reimagining a key moment, trying to figure out what
the fuck happened. And the evidence, ultimately, is all on
videotape. The hero eventually needs only to play back the tape
to reconstruct the events of that horrific moment.
I must say I'm a sucker for this premise. I like it everytime I
see it. However, here the events of the key moment are known well
in advance of Cage's playing of the tape. It's obvious from the
start. Worse, it's pretty simple. I would have liked if,
everytime Cage reimagined/revisited the moment of the murder,
some new piece of evidence was learned, some new layer of the
conspiracy peeled back. No such luck. All the layers of the
conspiracy peel back almost from the very beginning.
I won't tell you who the killer is, but I knew who the killer was
from the trailer. But here's a SPOILER hint. BobaFett's
Superfluous Handsome Man Dictum: Whenever there's a sympathetic,
young, leading-man type to compete with the real star, he is
either a victim or the culprit. And then it's just a matter of
working out the math.
(End of SPOILER.)
The ending of this film is just incomprehensible. Not plot-wise.
Editing-wise. I could literally not follow what the fuck was
supposed to be happening at the climax. A killer is stalking
Cage, there's a witness locked in a room, a storm raging outside,
an anchorwoman broadcasting a story, a van full of cops driving
along. Somehow all these things come together and the killer is
undone.
Message to DePalma: Don't get drunk in the editing room. Okay,
buddy?
This film got slammed by critics. I don't know why. Hollywood
doesn't make too many mysteries, even obvious mysteries. I was
happy to see one.
