Honestly, I almost didn’t watch Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball, simply because the first film was such a disappointment. Then I saw that P.J. Pesce was the director… the man who directed that abominable Lost Boys sequel, From Dusk Til Dawn 3, and Sniper 3. That’s not a sparkling track record to say the least. Then I delved even further, and discovered that the film was written by Olatunde Osunsanmi… the man who wrote The Fourth Kind, one of the worst films of the year. Of course, all of my reservations went out the window when I saw Vinnie Jones in the trailer. Yeah, I know by now that Vinnie Jones doesn’t automatically make a movie good, which was a hard lesson learned, but thankfully Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins Ball was one of the few exceptions.

The film is similar in structure to the first film. Some dude has a huge price on his head, and a group of assassins, all competing for the same contract, converge on one location. The mark this time is an unassuming FBI agent. The FBI, who gets wind of the budding assassination attempt, attempts to hide the guy. Of course, it’s a movie and it’s the FBI, so all they really do is alert the assassins to the whereabouts of their mark.

The best parts of the film are the assassins themselves. Vinnie Jones (Midnight Meat Train, EuroTrip) plays a dude known as Finbar McTeague, The Surgeon. His M.O. is that he likes to torture people… with surgical expertise. Tommy Flanagan (Sin City, Gladiator) plays Laszlo Soot, a master of disguise. Then you have Martha Higareda (Street Kings, Borderland) as the sexy female assassin. Add into the mix a new and inferior batch of Tremors, and you’ve got yourself a stew. Together these assassins kick ass and take names… then make bonehead moves near the film’s ultimate finale, but for sixty minutes, they are everything that you thought they would be in the first film.

P.J. Pesce does a good job of copying the style of the first film, and while it’s easy to see that the production budget of the film is considerably less than with the first movie, he does a nice job of covering up the fact with some excellent decisions. Pesce also manages to keep the pace of the film tight, and the action ever-present. Pesce breathes life into the characters and allows them to achieve their utmost potential. The only real problem with the film lies in the fact that the writing is pretty bad in a couple of spots, which leads to a couple of head-scratching moments later in the film… especially when two of the assassins develop a mysterious and seemingly out of the blue relationship, which makes no sense within the context of the film. Still, Pesce shows me enough with this film, that I feel he can be a serviceable director in the future… if he ever stops making shitty sequels that are barely related to the originals.

The cast of the film is excellent and comprised of up and comers and slowly goings. Tom Berenger (Sniper, Platoon) looks terrible but plays the part of the in jeopardy FBI agent smoothly. He’s a plus for the film. The assassins are all well acted, and if it weren’t for some stupid writing, I would say they were all pretty good. Vinnie Jones is badass for most of the film, then he’s mysteriously turned into a stupid, horny pussy. Tommy Flanagan is one of the coolest assassins, but he isn’t used nearly enough. The people who play the Tremor family are slightly annoying, and unlike the first film, they are one of the lowlights of the film.

Action is around every corner in Smokin’ Aces 2, but the actual kills are rather varied in regards to quality. Some of the kills are bloody and fantastic, but these only happen when they are part of a set piece. When the shootouts happen, and people are getting killed left and right, the kills become way less than spectacular. Sadly, most of the cool kills are in the beginning of the film thanks to the fact that the events escalate near the end of the film.

Smokin’ Aces 2 is a flawed flick for sure, but it does offer a nice amount of entertainment value. Is it really a sequel? No. It’s another in a long trend of sequel exploitation, a trend that seeks to dupe innocent moviegoers into wasting their money on films that are kind of similar to the originals, but completely unrelated.

Points Lost: -1 for an out of nowhere relationship between two assassins, -1 for the Tremor family which was quite annoying, -1 for some generic shootouts, -1 for -1 for not using Tommy Flanagan and Vinnie Jones enough

Lesson Learned: Never trust a dude who has a deck of cards.

Burning Question: How many fucking Tremor family members are there?

Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball
6/10

Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball (2010) - DVD Movie Reviews6.0101

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