Smokin' Aces

Initially i had planned to do a post about a book i had read recently, but that can wait. I've just seen the film Smokin' Ace's, (literally about 5 mins ago) I'm so glad i was the only one at home....It was laced with foul language, there was blood spurting in practically every scene, there was sparsely clad prostitutes and a motley crew of disturbing assassins, all pursuing a drugged up, x-entertainer magician type fellow who has a penchant for the aforementioned prostitutes. But once you get past all of that the film was actually good and had one of the best endings I've seen in a very very long time. It was one of those films which pulls all the loose ends together right at the end making everything fit together in that perfect yet totally unexpected way, i actually was on the end of my seat gasping "noway!!" several times during the last 10-15 mins. The storyline is this.... the x entertainer guy is put into a witness protection scheme thing (a very expensive one at that) as the FBI are hoping that he will dish the dirt on the Mafia and loads of other sinister characters. Cue the motley crew of disturbing assassins (amongst them is Alicia keys), which have been hired by various people who are after the x entertainer guy , in the vain hope that he won't spill the beans on them and their shady dealings. Throw in some FBI's in the mix and you have a kinda rat race to see who gets to the x entertainer first.. who just happens to be staying in the pent house suite of a top hotel, with round the clock security....up until a certain point i wasn't that impressed in fact i was quite disgusted at several points in the film. But the ending changed all of that, i think because of the nature of the film you weren't actually sure of how it was going to end, so i didn't have a preconceived idea of the ending, which made the ending all the more brilliant. It actually made enduring the rest of the film worth it. On a more serious note however, i think it showed how easy it is for the FBI (and also the police) to make mistakes which cost innocent lives (Charles Menendez??, "terrorist raids"??), in the case of this film it was a misinterpretation of information, lack of communication and not having access to all of the information available. I'm not going to say more than that as I'll end up saying what happened!!