What were they 'Smokin'?

As the kid behind me in the theater put it, the preview for this movie made it look "fuckin' bad ass." Looks can be deceiving. I expected a stylized action movie where top-flight actors run around trying to kill Jeremy Piven's latest incarnation since Ari Gold, Buddy Israel, with witty, quick dialogue and terrific action scenes. \nIt started just how I expected: about 20 minutes of introducing all the hit men vying for the million-dollar bounty on Isreal's head. A motley crue of independent contract killers trying to get to Israel before the FBI can get their lead witness for a reason that isn't really clear until the end, at which point the audience is left feeling a resounding, well, so what? The setup leads nowhere. The shootout is anti-climactic, most characters have loose ends that never get tied, and the plot twist means little to nothing. \nI wouldn't have minded a ridiculous plot as long as there were some garish, fun action sequences. I could have handled a preposterous twist at the end as long as there was some fresh, interesting dialogue and even one character worth caring about. No luck here.\nIt could have been a little better if director Joe Carnahan had focused on fleshing out a handful of characters from the great actors they had in their arsenal. Instead, every character is as paper-thin as the playing cards Israel incessantly tosses around the room. Piven isn't bad playing the strung out, has-been coke head, but he is never given enough screen time to establish a solid character.\nYou're left with a pointless performance by Ben Affleck, a laughably bad accent from Andy Garcia and wasted talent like Richie Aprile from "The Sopranos" and Matthew Fox from "Lost."\nIn a room filled with Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Ben Affleck and Jeremy Piven, who would turn to Ryan "Van Wilder" Reynolds and say, "You're my lead?" It's not even Reynolds' fault that the movie sucked so bad. None of the actors are particularly bad except for Garcia with his "what accent are you trying to pull off" tough guy FBI roll. \nThere are maybe two good lines in the whole movie. One guy groggily wakes up and says to a prostitute, "I just realized how messed up I was last night. You went from Beyonce to Bigfoot in six hours." Ari, I mean Israel, has a decent line about how there are no cleaning products in the world that can "get off" the ejaculate stain his friend put on his $12,000 jacket. I would have preferred to be the jacket than to sit through another minute of this movie. \nI wouldn't say it was the most trite, pathetic excuse for a film I've ever seen, but I don't know how to finish that sentence. When the lights went up, there were a couple of awkward clappers. Then, a number of people like me, offended by the clapping, responded with a loud round of boos. Someone yelled: "I want my money back." It was a free showing.