On S List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
Snake Eyes (1998)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
10/03, 1/26
1/26:
What the heck happened?
The first twelve minutes of Snake Eyes is among the best openings in film history. Afterwards, the
decline creeps in slowly until Kevin Dunne's laughable suicide. How about Rick
Santoro's ability to get all of the answers within an hour after the political assassination?
Although showing varying perspectives of the same event is ingenious, logic remains fatally flawed. For
example, if a woman working for the Navy wants to give the damaging proof of missile defense test results to an
important person, why do it at a marquee event while wearing conspicuous clothes and hair as if she's Marilyn
Monroe?
More than 14,000 people are at the event, and the building feels empty for the most part after the assassination?
It really takes a long time to process them if the goal is to take down the name and address of each person
plus a copy of his or her driver's license. Meanwhile, nobody, especially in the bathroom, sees the
woman who has blood all over herself? She has to be the number one person to look for.
As for Kevin Dunne, why assassinate Defense Secretary Charles Kirkland in an Atlantic City casino building
where there are hundreds of video cameras? Surely, he must have realized the chances of being sighted at all
times. At the end, there's no reason for him to get scared or confess to anything. He hadn't been suspected
of the murders despite Rick Santoro knowing the answer.
Back to the opening scene, how it's done is brilliant, reminding me of
The Bonfire of the Vanities and
Carlito's Way. All Brian De Palma had to do is keep up the same
momentum all the way to the end. Anyway, Nicolas Cage shines once again, and everybody else is fine. This
is more of a technical issue along with cheap film quality.
All in all, Snake Eyes is when Brian De Palma completely lost it for good.