Product Description

An assassination attempt thrusts a detective into a murder case with 14000 potential suspects and a deadly conspiracy where nothing is what it appears to be. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/17/2005 Starring: Nicolas Cage Gary Sinise Run time: 98 minutes Rating: R Director: Biran De Palma

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26060 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 1999-02-16
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller is largely an exercise in airing out his orchestral, oversized visual style (think of his Blowout, Body Double, or Raising Cain) for the heck of it. The far-fetched story features Nicolas Cage as a crooked police detective attending a championship boxing match at which the Secretary of Defense is assassinated. The unfortunate Secretary's right-hand man (Gary Sinise) happens to be Cage's old friend, a fact that complicates the cop's efforts to reconstruct the crime from conflicting accounts--a directorial strategy bearing similarities to Kurosawa's Rashomon. The outrageousness of the scenario essentially gives De Palma permission to construct a baroque cathedral of spectacular camera stunts, which (he well knows) are inevitably more interesting than the hoary conspiracy plot. (The opening scene alone, which runs on for a number of minutes and consists of one, unbroken shot that moves in from the street, following Cage up and down stairs, and in and out of rooms until finally ending ringside at the match, is breathtaking.) The shifting points of view--based on the contradictory statements of witnesses--also give De Palma license to get creative with camera angles and scene rearrangements. The script bogs down in the third act, but De Palma is just revving up for a big, operatic finish that is absolutely gratuitous but undeniably impressive. Yes, it's style over substance in Snake Eyes, but what style we're talking about.--Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Set in Atlantic City, on the night of a heavyweight boxing match, Brian De Palma's new thriller features an over-emoting Nicolas Cage as Rick Santoro, a corrupt local detective who is loud and chummy and wears hideous shirts. When the Secretary of Defense (Joel Fabiani), who's in town to catch the fight, is assassinated, Santoro's moment of glory arrives: he steps in to help his old buddy, Navy Commander Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), cover up the fact that he left the Secretary unguarded, and orders the police to search for a suspicious-looking brunette in a blond wig (Carla Gugino). Santoro soon finds himself lost in the mists of a rapidly shifting story in which nothing is as it seems. In spite of its noirish glow, De Palma's thriller is oddly unsuspenseful. Although his vaunted technique and Hitchcockian effects are all here, there's no life in the story (co-written by De Palma and David Koepp), and the last-minute burst of sentimentality is especially lame. -Daphne Merkin
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A very complex film -- much more than it's given credit.
The editorial review here by the Amazon guy (Keough?) is totally off the mark. He missed out on the entire point of Sinise purposefully plotting the crime where he did and not "coincidentally" with his friend. Forget all the dazzling camera work and just focus on the two main characters. Sinise's motivation is one of the more compelling that I have seen in ANY movie villain, and not easy to dismiss. To the film's credit it never marginalizes him, and winds up making some pretty serious statements about how we view loyalty. Cage's character and his relationship with Sinise really brings this out. Quite simply, a brilliant script. The only thing I would say is a bit hokey is the outfits of the ladies. But really, that just kind of makes it fun. Gorgeous Ryuiki Sakamoto score. This movie is not about DePalma flexing his technical muscles. It's one of the best American films in decades.

A Somewhat Underrated Movie
I find that people don't really give Snake Eyes enough credit. There are claims that Cage's character can't really be related to. Well, how many movies can you find where you can actually relate to what the character is going through? I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time relating to Bruce Willis' part in "Die Hard" and I also have a tough time relating to Nicolas Cage's character in "Gone In 60 Seconds". Why? Because I've never been a One-man army against terrorists and I've never been a car thief. The point is, that you don't have to relate to the character to enjoy the movie.

I find this movie enjoyable because the camera work is superb, the plot keeps you interested, and Cage plays his role as a weak, corrupted cop very well. Cage's character really comes across as being a flashy sleezeball, and yet some people are attributing that to poor acting on his part. There is a fine line between bad acting and a bad character. Unfortunately, many people confuse the two.

Overall, if you're looking for an excellent mystery/suspense flick, put this on your lists of things to see.

Hitchcock ending with a hitch
Snake Eyes is a better movie than some have concluded; noteworthy is how in the first half of the movie it shows you the view points of the witnesses which is how it is in real life when trying to construct what rreally happened in a complex event. DePalma employs some OUTSTANDING camera work; particularly the camera view replicating from the prize fighter's eyes that then turns into the mirror and you see the fighter, shadow boxing, and the scene in the upper hotel rooms where the camera looks down and glides over several adjacent rooms to show how people really behave behind closed doors. On a tactical note when the Gary Sinese character shoots THROUGH the adjacent material to hit the alleged assasin that is very well done since in real gunfights you shoot through to the enemy (if your bullets will penetrate) not waltz into a line-of-sight like a Hollywood gunfight. The movie's failure is that it revealed that Gary Sinese's character is the mastermind/villain in the movie middle, the film should have lead us to believe he was a good guy longer, until the near end, have the betrayal and beating of the Nicholas Cage character. The rationale behind Sinese's character that he was fed up that the Navy didn't have an effective close-range missile defense system rings true, but I doubt such a person would resort to evil to get a good result, but the servicemen's frustration was well portrayed. The girl's desire to not waste billions on a defense system that can't work makes both viewpoints very timely in light of recent current events. These revelations should have come as a shock just at the end as DePalma did in Body Double. Then have the weak, bleeding and battered Cage returns to the girl in hiding and get at the truth just as Sinese arrives to finish them both off.

Here is where DePalma succeeds with the Hitchcock ethos of suspense; a weakened hero, a tainted hero, in over his head, forces all around him converging to destroy him...dragging himself nevertheless to rescue the girl, a marvelous scene. The ending would have been better if the two had made a run for it, the girl shot and Cage and Sinese scuffling and then Sinese pumping bullets into Cage who refuses to die as but he fails to reach the FBI agents in the auditoreum Sinese runs out of bullets, and Cage makes it. The FBI agents turn on Sinese and open fire when he refuses to drop his silencer-equipped gun (not a virtuous law enforcement lay-out). Have Cage in the hospital on life support for days waking up, with a hand holding his---the girl played elegantly by Carla Gugino who demurs when his wife/son enter to greet him.

Baring a better ending to the danger, I like how the film showed how Cage was a hero for a brief time until his past caught up with him and we as we are fond to do in America decided to knock our icon off its pedestal. There is perhaps truth to the idea that good people who get caught up in a bad web of circumstances just need a fresh start to reshape their lives. Show Cage in prison in despair, his life shattered, and then have him visited by Carla Gugino who says she'll wait for him, have him roll the dice and get two sixes; "No more snake eyes".