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Snake Eyes (1998)

tomatometer

40

Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 9

No consensus yet.

audience

39

liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 60,001

My Rating

Movie Info

Brian DePalma directed this taut thriller, set in Atlantic City, where a corrupt cop investigates a political assassination. Outside an Atlantic City arena-hotel-casino, a TV news reporter stands in a pre-hurricane storm to report on the heavyweight boxing match about to begin inside. A transition to the stadium interior focuses on Atlantic City homicide Detective Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage), a father with a wife and son, yet also a dishonest cop who maintains a mistress and cheerfully accepts

Feb 16, 1999

Paramount Pictures

Cast

All Critics (67) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (26) | Rotten (40) | DVD (14)

Wispy threads of dramatic plausibility and character involvement unravel completely by the time of the incredibly silly final reel.

September 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
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Never loses its bearings as it hovers between preposterous paranoia and a Billy-Wilder-like moral fable about a deeply flawed hero who draws a line in the sand beyond which he cannot go.

April 27, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
New York Observer
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Director Brian De Palma does his stylish best to weave the patchy script into a cinematic quilt, but despite his best efforts -- and they're often formidable -- the thing just doesn't cohere.

July 12, 2002 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
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What might have been fascinating after a while becomes frustrating and, finally, a real slog.

June 18, 2002 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
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The last five to 10 minutes are completely stupid and add nothing to the film.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: CNN.com | Comment
CNN.com
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I can't think of another movie that starts so brilliantly and ends so miserably as this one.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
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De Palma continues perfecting his brilliant visual style within the most blatantly artificial plot scenarios.

August 21, 2009 Full Review Source: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul | Comment

Brian De Palma's exercise in flashy paranoia and shallow cynicism comes out of the gate like gangbusters, but falls apart in a flurry of preposterous plotting.

September 18, 2008 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Aside from a sensational, continuous 20-minute opening take, and an amazing shot that literally swoops over the top of a row of hotel rooms, there's little of interest here.

September 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Snake Eyes is about multiple perceptions of one major event, their relationship to each other and to the audience.

September 23, 2006 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

The first 20 minutes of Snake Eyes are among the most imaginative and energetic minutes of film I've seen in a while.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

The film echoes the technical wizardry and complex plotting of De Palma's best film, Blow Out.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

A moderately suspenseful thriller that seems somewhat conventional compared to De Palma's earlier envelope-pushing efforts. Intriguing, but the mystery villain is rather obvious from the start.

January 24, 2006 Comment
Fantastica Daily

Unfortunately, the material that De Palma chooses to hang his flair on feels like a paltry version of No Way Out as if penned by Crichton or Grisham.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

I give De Palma and company credit for not succumbing to the usual bloat we see in big-budget Hollywood films.

April 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

The mundane plot of Snake Eyes is disguised with lots of camera razzle-dazzle.

June 28, 2004 Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | Comment

Promises to be a masterpiece, only to succumb to Hollywood mediocrity -- just like its director.

April 26, 2004 Full Review | Comment (1)
rec.arts.movies.reviews

Instantly forgettable, but good fun while it lasts.

May 22, 2003 Full Review Source: Film Blather | Comment
Film Blather

A dazzling piece of entertainment -- a mystery so cleverly constructed you find yourself wanting to see it again before it's over.

May 20, 2003 Comment
Palo Alto Weekly

DePalma, a director who chooses his projects carefully, has scored again.

February 8, 2003 Full Review Source: Film Quips Online | Comment
Film Quips Online

The film that not only made me give up on Brian DePalma -- the man can't make a good movie anymore -- but it also made me doubt the judgement of Nicolas Cage and Gary Sinise.

November 7, 2002 Full Review Source: Netflix | Comment
Netflix
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Snake Eyes

Brian DePalma's Snake Eyes is a pretty bad thriller. The concept of Snake Eyes was great, and I quite enjoyed the idea, however the execution of the plot isn't poor, and Brian DePalma, who usually directs good films, is pretty sloppy this time around. Snake Eyes could have been something great, but instead it's an

November 2, 2011
TheDudeLebowski65
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

When it comes to thrillers, Brian De Palma's name always comes to the top of my list as one of the living masters. In his polical conspiracy thriller Snake Eyes, we have an extremely effective film that is very much in the De Palma style with the long uncut sequences and split-screen scenes while also carrying what is

January 29, 2008
FilmFanatik
Tim Salmons

Super Reviewer

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