Smoking Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball – DVD Review
The Flick:
It’s not often that I vehemently hate a movie. Usually I do my best to keep an open mind because I know how difficult it can be to make an awesome flick. However, Smoking Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball is a smoldering pile of crap, and that is me being kind.
The first Smoking Aces was unbelievably cool. It was filled with interesting characters that buried themselves in your memories. Â Assassins’ Ball is filled with weak characters that haven’t been fleshed out, terrible acting, atrocious editing, and one of the worst scripts I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching unfold in front of me. I knew I was in for a long and painful experience within the first ten minutes of the film. The editing and pacing of the flick is distracting, jumpy sequences took me out of the film and had me constantly checking my watch.
What really brought the entire movie down on itself though, was the fact that the best actors of the bunch (Tom Berenger, Maury Sterling, Martha Higareda, Vinnie Jones) are underutilized in favor of of chronic over-actor Clayne Crawford. Now to give Crawford a little credit I saw him in an episode of Burn Notice and he wasn’t all that bad, so maybe his stiff-as-wood performance here is due to good old fashioned bad directing.
Going into great detail about the flick’s plot or anything else associated with this it won’t give me back the time this picture took from me. So, I’m going to recommend steering clear of this one, or at the very least rent it if you have to see for yourself. Because Smoking Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball is absolutely positively NOT a killer film.
The DVD:
Audio/Video
The audio wasn’t terrible, but the video was hindered so much by the choppy editing that it distracted me from actually paying attention to the quality. Overall I think it looked alright for a direct-to-DVD flick.
Special Features
The special features are pretty slim on this disc, but the ones that they do have aren’t terrible if by some twist of fate you actually enjoyed the movie. Included on the disc is a Gag Reel, some Deleted Scenes that thankfully were deleted, A featurette about the weapons used in the film, and also one on the characters, and a Commentary Track as well.
The Flick: Rating: 
The DVD: Rating: 
Come on Donny, tell us what you really feel. I was somewhat looking forward to this as I loved the first film. Sad to hear how horrible it is, but thank you for saving me upwards of $20. By the by, I love BIRN NOTICE, my favorite show on TV. Just threw that in there since I saw you mention it.
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Donny Broussard Reply:
January 29th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Brad, it was terrible. I hate to hate on a flick, but there was nothing about it that I enjoyed. Burn Notice does rock!
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Almost zero stars there Boss. I had no interest either way, but it’s nice to hear you rip a film for a change.
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donny Reply:
January 29th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Well sir, it really has to suck for me to rip it. I really wanted this one to be good, but it didn’t succeed in entertaining me for even five minutes.
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