I must admit that the only reason I went to see this movie was to check out Alicia Keys kickin’ butt. The movie, promising to be another Pulp-Fiction-Quentin-Tarantino-flick-wannabe, was one wild tale about the goings on in the crime world.

The story goes something like this: The FBI have been monitoring a mob boss when they hear about a $1 million contract being taken out on one Buddy “Aces” Israel. This seems to bring out all the contract killers from the woodwork. To get the $1 million someone is going to have to produce Buddy’s heart.

The cast makes for some crazy reading and as per the imdb website, of the people I recognize, includes Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman (who was hilarious!), Common, Andy Garcia (annoying as all heck), Alicia Keys, Wayne Newton, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Henderson, Nestor Carbonell, Joel Edgerton, and Matthew Fox. It was like playing spot the star and it was cool that there was a pretty major presence of Kiwi (Henderson) and Aussie (Edgerton) actors.

There are basically five groups chasing Buddy: The FBI, three crazy neo-Nazi brothers, two hit women, a hit man with an amazing knack for disguises, a torturer and a bail bondsman and his two ex-copper buddies. It all culminates in an awesome and bloody shoot out at a Lake Tahoe hotel. Be aware that there is a lot of death and blood in this one.

The pace is manic at times and scenes jump all over the place. The characters are all a little weird and definitely not main stream. And here lies the problem – a convoluted story line that takes way too long to get to the point and a huge cast of characters, none of whom really get any development, means that you have to pay attention to everything that is going on. There are some shock deaths and there is an interesting twist at the end.

Definitely not the best movie in the world, Smokin’ Aces is still fairly entertaining and most importantly Alicia Keys did sort of kick butt in the end and she looked, and sounded, damned fine doing it.