Snake Eyes

• Cat.no: PLFEB 37701
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 95 minutes
• Sides: 2 (CLV)
• Year: 1998
• Pressing: 1999
• Chapters: 12 (7/5)
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : None
  

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  Director:

  Brian De Palma

Cast:

Nicolas Cage
Gary Sinise
Stan Shaw
Carla Gugino
John Heard
Kevin Dunn

Brian De Palma’sbest films, in this writer’s opinion, aren’t his recentmegabudget hits (The Untouchables, the overrated Mission: Impossible)but his earlier string of Hitchcockian thrillers (Sisters, Obsession,Dressed To Kill, Blow Out) which tend to combine fluid visual mechanicsof style with guilt, vice, deception and double-cross. Snake Eyes is ahalf-return to form in the sense that it has little guilt or vice butplenty of deception and double-cross – not to mention oodles of style.Classic De Palma, if you will, but for the (lack of) sleaze.

Excluding the opening windowboxed (within the 2.35:1 image) footage of aTV news reporter focusing on a storm outside the Atlantic Cityhotel/casino wherein the action mostly takes place, the fifteen minuteopening shot (which runs a curious 2½ chapters) follows loud-jacketed,not entirely on the level cop Rick Santoro (Cage) as he holds a numberof conversations with characters on his mobile phone or present in andaround the hotel/casino’s boxing arena before finally joining old friendand military brass in charge of security Kevin Dunne (Sinise) at theringside, noticing a suspect redhead, watching the fighter Tyler (Shaw)take a dive, hearing the crowds roar and seeing the Secretary Of Defenceshot down at the ringside as the blonde (Gugino) who’s just sat down inthe seat next to Santoro hands something to the Secretary.

For the remainder, the cop catches up with Tyler, the blonde (who turns out tohave been wearing a wig) and Dunne, who tell him (and show us inflashback) their side of the story. Or lie – as Santoro discoverswatching various security camera recordings of events. Perhaps the moststartling moment comes when he stops the girl’s flashback in mid-flow totell her, “that couldn’t be right.”

Visually and aurally, it’s as dense a film as De Palma’s ever made. Thesound of a storm outside the casino (building to a hurricane throughoutthe proceedings) is impressive, as is Ryuichi Sakamoto‘s magnificentlybrooding score, but the visuals are much more so – most noticeably theopening unbroken take, the lavish labyrinth of hotel corridors throughwhich Cage and Sinise hunt for the blonde and a superb sequence wherethe camera unexpectedly tracks (in overhead shot) across five hotel roomsuites and their adjoining walls revealing the occupants within. If notultimately his finest film, it at does at least resemble Blow Out ingenre being a conspiracy thriller. But the latter was a lot moreperverse (and enjoyable), whereas this nineties variant, whiletechnically peerless, is squeaky clean by comparison (despite severalhints that it’s going to be anything but in the opening reel).

Pioneer’s PAL disc mostly does Snake Eyes justice – it’s a filmunwatchable in anything other than 2.35:1 widescreen since De Palmaconstantly uses the complete letterbox area, even resorting in chapter 8to his trademark split screen device. The sidebreak is in a sensibleplace too, coming after the lengthy hotel corridor/rooms sequence, whicha break would have disrupted both in terms of flow and a wonderfulsection of Sakamoto’s score.

Side two, the girl’s testimony, starts off in a stairwell, which makes sense.More chapters would, however, have been nice given it’s a film from which onoccasion you’re likely to want to watch individual scenes. Finally, there’s nohidden trailer in the closing chapter as has been the case with a number ofrecent Pioneer/Buena Vista releases – a great pity in this instance,as the trailer was, I recall, rather good.

Film: 5/5
Picture: 5/5
Sound: 5/5