Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 65
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 39
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 9
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 60,001
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
Aug 7, 1998 Wide
Feb 16, 1999
Paramount Pictures
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.
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.
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.
What might have been fascinating after a while becomes frustrating and, finally, a real slog.
The last five to 10 minutes are completely stupid and add nothing to the film.
I can't think of another movie that starts so brilliantly and ends so miserably as this one.
De Palma continues perfecting his brilliant visual style within the most blatantly artificial plot scenarios.
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.
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.
Snake Eyes is about multiple perceptions of one major event, their relationship to each other and to the audience.
The first 20 minutes of Snake Eyes are among the most imaginative and energetic minutes of film I've seen in a while.
The film echoes the technical wizardry and complex plotting of De Palma's best film, Blow Out.
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.
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.
I give De Palma and company credit for not succumbing to the usual bloat we see in big-budget Hollywood films.
The mundane plot of Snake Eyes is disguised with lots of camera razzle-dazzle.
Promises to be a masterpiece, only to succumb to Hollywood mediocrity -- just like its director.
Instantly forgettable, but good fun while it lasts.
A dazzling piece of entertainment -- a mystery so cleverly constructed you find yourself wanting to see it again before it's over.
DePalma, a director who chooses his projects carefully, has scored again.
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.
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
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
Super Reviewer
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