A reasonably entertaining, if altogether unnecessary, direct-to DVD/Blu follow-up to 2006’s mildly successful ‘Smokin’ Aces’, ‘Assassins’ Ball’ is pretty much more of the same, but stripped of most of the big names and a hefty chunk of the budget. If blood, bullets and chaos is your thing, you could do worse.
I believe this pic once started life as a prequel to ‘Smokin’ Aces’ but that idea must have been scaled back (due to the lack of participation from some of the cast of the first perhaps?) as there’s very little here that connects this pic to the original outside of the wasted use of Tommy Flanagan who returns as Lazlo Soot and the crowd favorites, the Tremor family, with Maury Sterling back as Lester joined by some new hillbilly clan members.
Other than that, the pic is basically just a streamlined reiteration of the first with new characters and a new location.
We meet a not terribly important low-level FBI agent Walter Reed (Tom Berenger) who finds out that there is a high-priced assassination contract on his head from Agent Baker (Clayne Crawford) who is struggling to understand why Walter Reed is so important to kill. Assigned to protect Reed, Baker takes the wheel-chair bound Reed into hiding in an underground bunker beneath a jazz club with a team of agents on the look out.
When word of the contract spreads amongst various assassins though (the raising of eyebrows due to three million dollars and a tight hours-long timeframe), the assassins quickly barrage the jazz club trying outgun each other and the feds for the prize.
The eclectic group of assassins includes Finbar McTeague (Vinnie Jones), a, well, Vinnie Jones type hitman, a sexy Latina Ariella Martinez (Martha Higareda), Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) who uses various disguises and the Tremor family, a none-too-subtle group of psycho inbreds who would rather shoot a midget rigged with explosives through the front door rather than try anything covert.
Running at a quick 85 minutes sans credits, that’s pretty much all there is to the pic besides a decidedly forced last-minute twist.
I will say that it’s generally slicker than your usual DTV fare no doubt due to the involvement of Joe Carnahan (director of the first film and the upcoming ‘A-Team’) - who executive produces here and was involved in the story.
Surprisingly stylish direction from P.J. Pesce who last gave us the not nearly long enough in the waiting ‘The Lost Boys’ sequel, ‘The Lost Tribe’, which was a terrible film. Here, Pesce manages to keep everything moving at a nice pace and being relatively coherent.
The biggest names in the pic, Tom Berenger and Vinnie Jones, do add a little bit of marquee flava to the pic so as to make you think you’re not completely wasting your time and we even get a head-scratchingly short scene with Ernie Hudson. Despite its short running time, it does take a bit too long to get to the action with half of the film already played out before the big first action shoot-out but once there. It’s handled well enough, with all the expected slo-mo bloody mayhem that was signature of the first.
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball certainly not as smart, well-cast or energetic as the original but I doubt anyone was expecting that.
The film is presented with a 1.78:1 1080p VC1 encode that is a mostly solid effort taken directly from an HD source but there a few flaws, with contrast and sharpness sometimes being an issue in some of the darker sequences. Close shots look great though and as a whole is fairly clean. The DTS-HD Master Aud track is pounding as expected.
A nice bevy of special features is included which starts off with a feature-length commentary from ex producer Carnahan and director P.J. Pesce who make for a fun track if not terribly compelling. ‘Confessions of an Assassin’ runs about half an hour and includes various BTS footage and cast and crew interviews. ‘The Bunker Mentality’ is a quick look at the bunker set being designed and built.
‘Ready, Aim, Fire: The Weapons of ‘Smokin’ Aces 2’ gives you a look at all the weapons used in the film. There’s the 7 minute ‘Behind the Scenes with Joe Carnahan’ with Carnahan talking a little bit about the first pic and his involvement in the second. ‘Cue the Clown’ is a fun little featurette explaining one of the more outrageous stunts in the film.
All of the above is in high definition with a few standard def extras being 10 minutes of ‘Deleted Scenes’ and a 7 minute ‘Gag Reel’. Blu-ray exclusives are the now standard Universal BD-Live connections, ‘My Scenes’ where you can bookmark and save your favorite scenes and the pocket Blu app which allows you to access and control certain functions through your iPhone or iPod.
The film also contains both ‘Unrated’ and ‘R’ rated versions although why they bothered with the ‘R’ rated cut is beyond me considering the film was never released theatrically.
It’s fast, bloody and considering the franchise, suitably chaotic. The high-def vid and aud is good with fine special features so knowing of course that ‘Assassins’ Ball’ doesn’t hold a candle to the original, I still say this would make a fine rental for fans of the original.
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