SNAKE EYES (68)

Directed by: Brian De Palma

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino

The Pitch: A bent cop investigates a political assassination during a boxing match at an Atlantic City casino.

Theo Sez: How self-reflexive should films get? Can the turgid also be magnificent? Does foreplay turn into a form of masturbation if it turns out one partner isn't actually interested in the act itself? Should the other partner be offended, or just have fun with it? This extravagantly pleasurable two-thirds of a terrific movie starts off looking at a bank of TV screens (before veering off into the most impressive 14-minute shot in even this director's Steadicam-obsessed career), then features such bits as a character looking straight into the camera to remark, "Great shot, huh?", or Cage finding a clue to the mystery by replaying an act of violence (a knockout punch) from various different angles. Which of course is exactly how action films are put together, drawing an explicit parallel between action hero and film-maker, and - coupled with the (surveillance) camera-heavy casino setting, plus said hero's progression from money-buys-everything venality to a higher integrity - suggesting a reference to the action-film auteur's plight in Hollywood, another camera-dependent setting dedicated to making money off suckers. De Palma's pyrotechnics-without-a-(narrative)- point become a counterpart to his lead character's perverse commitment to unravelling the case, when it would clearly make more sense to take the money and shut up - you might say he's jazzing things up as a matter of principle, repudiating the genre's stale narrative-based conventions, insisting that "pure" film-making is all about technique : scenes are repeated from different viewpoints ("story" is a construct, narrators unreliable), the camera suddenly cranes up for an irrelevant overhead shot peeping into a row of hotel rooms (viewers are voyeurs, unconcerned with narrative per se), and the end of the opening Steadicam shot coincides with the gunshot kicking off the plot proper (its violence anticipated by the "violence" of the film's first cut). All of which doesn't in itself make for a good movie, especially given that it's actually out of date (Hollywood's no longer a slave to "story", its action films increasingly loose and incoherent) and not even taken to its logical conclusion - the film doesn't end by subverting conventions, DRESSED TO KILL-style, but instead turns into a lame, wretchedly-written chase movie ; but it still adds fascinating subtext to what's already a thoroughly dazzling display. Lots of fun for about an hour, mostly because you don't know what it'll do next - which, despite its (apparent) contempt for narrative, actually makes the plot a lot more interesting and mysterious. Had it not been resolved at all, it might've ended up a late-90s (i.e. non-political) WINTER KILLS - a film that wilfully complicates to make a point about unknowable truths ; as it is, still a stylish near-miss from a cold, brilliant film-maker.