Snake Eyes

No matter what he does, filmmaker Brian De Palma is never going to be "the next Alfred Hitchcock." But that hasn't stopped him from trying again — unsuccessfully — with "Snake Eyes."

The obvious inspiration for this uneven suspense-thriller is Hitchcock's 1948 thriller "Rope," which used a series of 10-minute-plus takes to convey a sense of real-time action. There are also bits swiped from Akira Kurosawa's 1951 Japanese mystery "Rashomon," and several other Hitchcock films (some of which work surprisingly well here).

Unfortunately, the material isn't up to par with De Palma's directorial conceits, and he and screenwriter David Koepp (with whom De Palma collaborated on the 1996 big-screen version of "Mission: Impossible") tip their hands far too early. Once the central plot is revealed, it's all downhill.

Another negative is the wildly over-the-top performance from Nicolas Cage, who stars as Rick Santoro, a corrupt Atlantic City detective reluctantly investigating the shooting of a high-ranking government official (Joel Fabiani), which occurred in the midst of a prize fight.

Rick only agrees to take charge of the investigation to help cover up the apparent negligence of his best friend, naval officer Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), who was assigned to protect the man and failed. And the task is daunting, since there were more than 14,000 potential witnesses in the arena at the time of the shooting.

He eventually discovers there are four witnesses who may know more than they're telling: the heavyweight champ who apparently threw the fight (Stan Shaw); the mysterious woman in white (Carla Gugino), who was seen talking to the man before he was killed; industrialist Gilbert Powell (John Heard); and to Rick's horror, Kevin.

For at least an hour, De Palma is able to effectively increase the tension, thanks to the long continuous takes (including the 15-minute opening), which lead to some suffocatingly suspenseful scenes early on. But as mentioned, once the mystery is revealed, the whole thing collapses quickly and rather messily.

It doesn't help that Cage's performance is so cartoonish, and the fight scenes (choreographed by "Raging Bull" trainer Jimmy Gambina) are so hokey. However, a fine supporting cast (which includes Sinise and Gugino) does a decent job of fleshing out some extremely underwritten characters.

"Snake Eyes" is rated R for violent gunplay and fistfighting, profanity, gore, a brutal torture scene and use of some vulgar slang.