Typically January and February are dumpster months for the studios, months where they dispense of the crap movies they have on hand because people are interested in awards and there is no sense in wasting blockbuster films while the kiddies are in school. Well, slipping through is a little film called Smokin’ Aces and while it isn’t for the kiddies, it certainly is for the rest of us and I had a chance to talk to writer-director Joe Carnahan about his new shoot ’em up crime flick that is so much more than the violence it offers up.
This one speaks of loyalty, a bit of romance and a whole lotta laughs. The film stars Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Alicia Keys, Peter Berg, Taraji P. Henson, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, Martin Henderson, Ryan Reynolds, Common and Matthew Fox and it holds nothing back and my interview with Joe was no different.
Nothin is taboo with Joe and he talks about it all openly, including why he left the director’s chair on Mission: Impossible III, comparisons to Tarantino and his upcoming flicks. So sit back and enjoy my chat with a director you are going to be hearing a lot about in the very near future
I see you are involved with this new wave of Internet “journalism” and movie coverage with a profile at IMDb and the great Q&As at CHUD.
Joe Carnahan (JC): Oh yeah, that’s me. Dikdastardly is me.
Yeah, I could tell in comparing the writing styles from your blog that it was you.
JC: Yeah, I never ducked that. You know, I don’t believe in erecting these kinds of walls between yourself and fans and whomever because at the end of the day we’re all movie buffs – we all love the same things about movies. To have a communal thing is great.
Is it ever seen as a chance for you to eliminate rumors and control the flow of information in regards to you and your work?
Talking about that, and considering Narc is really the only talked about movie that you have made, even Piven in the press notes is quoted saying, “What, I’m going to work with Carnahan? Sign me up.”
JC: It’s great, because that one film immediately kind of made me a thing and then I was going to do this Harrison Ford film and then the work on M:I III and it’s like street cred. Even in the M:I III scenario I am still thankful because they got to make the movie they wanted to make and I got to make the movie I wanted to make. I never would have been able to make Smokin’ Aces if I had stayed with that process.
Narc was something like a $6.5 million budget and Smokin’ Aces is $21.5, what was M:I III going to be when you were attached?
JC: $186.
And what kind of movie were you looking at making?
Was your story entirely different from what got released?
JC: Oh yeah, the only thing that I wrote and Dan Gilroy wrote, the only remnants of our story that we wrote was the Keri Russell scenes at the beginning, but ours was much dirtier. At the end of the day I wanted to make the punk rock version of that series and they really weren’t down for that…
So that was the “creative difference”?
Would you revisit a film of that size? You’ve done well with the smaller budgets and a film that big seems like a different beast.
JC: I would revisit that same kind of story – here’s the thing man – I would put the action of Smokin’ Aces up against anything they did in that movie for $21 million bucks or whatever it was we spent on that movie. I have no problem with that at all. The more you can keep those things in check, especially budgetarily and you can figure out to do things that aren’t going to require the sun, the moon and the stars you are going to be in good shape. If I can go through my career and never make a movie that costs more than $100 million I’ll be really happy.
As far as budget goes you have a massive amount of people in this movie. Granted they aren’t Tom Cruise style stars, but these are people that people love to watch and see in movies.
JC: Right.
$21 million, all these people and all these effects… Were you ever limited?
JC: You know what it was? We shot that movie in 40 days. So to do that in 40 days you can get a lot of bang for your buck. You can’t do it in 60 days or 65, it needs to happen in 40. So, I never one time felt like I was being limited or artistically constrained at all. At the same time, I was aware that you can go up to this point and not beyond that. I was cognoscente of that and mindful of that and respectful of that the entire time.
When you put the script online I noticed you said the ending is a little different and it is and I have to be honest, I like the ending in the script much better.
JC: You know what’s funny? In the DVD you can watch that ending. I call it the “Cowboy Ending”. The film I thought was very, and it was intentional, it’s supposed to be confounding and frustrating and different and unusual and you see this outlandish violence set against this real world nasty violence. I was going for something were you hang that on a wall, that collage, and it holds together and to put every kind of artistic impulse I ever had in a movie. In a movie that could be very abrupt at times I felt [the script ending] was a bit too abrupt, but that was the original scripted ending. However, I love the theatricality of the ending now because there is purpose. It could be considered a dour ending, but I love that. We see enough bullshit and we see enough run-of-the-mill fucking crap I would rather see someone come out of that film furious and pissed off rather than “eh, yeah.” Forget it, that’s boring.
So, how does this scripted ending work out? In the one posted online it sounds like he just shoots the oxygen tent, but I want him to shoot him in the head!
JC: Nah, he starts to do this [simulates raising a gun], and he starts firing and you go to black.
I just wanted to see some more blood and a head splatter!
Yeah, I read somewhere someone called it the Pulp Fiction of the 2000s, do you agree with that?
JC: That’s fine – dude listen – I don’t blame Quentin at all, he made a great movie and as a great movie and however it happened, it was anointed and became the barometer by which all crime films are going to be judged thereafter. It’s utterly unfair. When I read that shit I think, ‘Okay, I’ll never make another fucking movie in this genre again,’ because you can’t do it. You can’t move a muscle without being compared to Tarantino. I’m telling you, when it comes full circle, I was reading a review of The Departed and it said something about Scorsese going into Tarantino country. When the fuck did that happen?
Yeah, I don’t see that.
I was going to ask you, if you took a bunch of movies and threw them in a blender and out came Smokin’ Aces what would they be?
JC: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona, The Getaway because of the stuff in the hotel, Mike and Nicky.
Usual Suspects?
JC: The Usual Suspects absolutely man! I love that fragmented story.
You know, with the slight twist ending posting the script online sort of ruins that part of the film. Personally I don’t think the movie is about the twist so it doesn’t really matter and you must not either.
JC: No, it doesn’t matter. Here’s the thing, the twist ending, I remember getting in a fight with the producers – this is always great, I love talking about this because I think it is important. The producer tells me, “Well no one gives a shit about the forsaken FBI agent.” I said, ‘That’s the point, I don’t care about him either. I don’t care.’ It’s what the Feds did with that and how they treated their own people and how they betrayed their own guys. Because that’s what we do, this government does that. The minute we see a better deal man, on to it, if there is anything allegorical about this film it’s that, how we do things.
That speaks of loyalty, and in your case, and in your filmmaking, I thought you were loyal to your actors in letting them tell the story instead of a ton of flashy camera work and editing, which has become a staple with these kinds of films. Was that a conscious decision and did a producer ever ask if you were going to go in a Tony Scott style route?
JC: You know what, I thought there was enough combustible elements that I could wait and have those moments where they deserve to be. Ultimately the big tap dance that Smokin’ Aces is is that it is requiring the viewer to make a lot of gear changes very quickly, and you said you saw it twice. I bet the second time you saw it, having knowing it you had a complete road map of it and now you start seeing different things.
Definitely, and I actually enjoyed it more too. I wasn’t sure if it was my mood the first time or what, but I knew I didn’t get the full effect of it the first time, which was the main reason I went a second time, and I am glad I did.
JC: Yeah, you tied into it and you knew the journey you were going to be taken on. Here’s the thing, all my favorite movies, the films I admire the most, I’ve seen more than one time. A lot of times – I remember watching Persona when I was 18, Bergman’s film, what a load of shit. What the fuck is this? What is this weird like lesbians, what are they doing? Then I remember seeing it a couple years later and going, ‘Wow, that’s really interesting.’ Then I remember watching it when I was 30 and falling in love with it and being like ‘What the fuck was I thinking? This is a brilliant movie, I love this movie.’ That’s happened to me lately and I watch it again and it goes down in my top ten, to me Smokin’ Aces almost has that, just to get the full sense of what it’s doing. If you want to write it off as it’s goofy that’s fine, but I am telling you right now, in much the same way as Narc has endured, it will play really well over time.
You know, it is that kind of movie, and it is a movie that the people that see it and love it are going to want their hands on it immediately. What I am getting at is that it will be pirated and you will see it on the Internet right away. How much does that bother you?
JC: It really bothers me. My cousin Doug works for Warner Music out of Detroit and I’ll never forget when Napster was really big and people were pirating stuff that he told me about five guys that lost their job. I asked why and he was like “Napster”. I refuse to go on the Internet and not pay for music, iTunes is 99 cents a song, if you want to rob someone and you feel good about being a crook – I mean it’s that serious. People got over Lars from Metallica when he was complaining, but why was that wrong, his shit is being ripped off! That’s how he makes his living man, that’s how he’s compensated. I fully understand where he is coming from and I don’t mind you loving it, do it the right way! The legal way.
You have a few movies coming up here… Pride and Glory you wrote, what’s the status of that one.
JC: It’s great man, I’ve seen it. Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Noah Emmerich and Jon Voight, my friend Gavin O’Connor directing. It’s always great because Gavin and I wrote this pre-9/11 and it’s always wonderful to see that now it has caught up. It’s also great because that’s my wheel house, the world I love is cops and robbers.
Yeah, the storyline has your fingerprints all over it.
JC: Yeah, and I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how it does because it is a real – I mean you’re still dealing with sacred cows – the NYPD, 9/11 is not that far removed from our collective consciousness, so to do that type of movie is really ballsy.
How are Norton and Farrell in that?
JC: They’re fantastic!
Norton seems like the perfect actor for your style of writing.
JC: Ed’s like one of those actors, he’s got such great presence.
He seems like someone that could take your words…
JC: …and crush them. Absolutely! Ed will always be an intriguing actor, a guy that will always be interesting to watch.
You mentioned your brother Matthew earlier, he penned White Jazz, he wrote The Kingdom, which is directed by Peter Berg, starring Jeremy Piven and Jason Bateman who are all in Smokin’ Aces. Is this one big family now?
JC: It’s great because Pete was in the movie and Pete used Mauro Fiore to shoot The Kingdom who shot Smokin’ Aces and used a lot of the guys I had in that movie. It’s great because you feel a bond and we’re all friends, I’ve been friends with Pete for years. My brother wrote Lions for Lambs, which Redford is directing right now and Pete’s going to play the general in it, the colonel giving them the brief in the beginning. I love it, and I know with White Jazz I’m going to put Pete in there somewhere too.
JC: Totally!
After seeing Bateman in Smokin’ Aces I just knew he had to be in White Jazz.
JC: It’s funny because Bateman and I were going to do something at Universal called Remarkable Fellows, which is amazingly funny.
But this guy is more than comedy, which we can see from the trailer for The Kingdom.
JC: That all came from Pete’s work that we did with Jason that day when we shot Rick Reed [Bateman’s character] in Smokin’ Aces, he fell in love with him, everybody did. He was killing it! Bateman killed it.
His career has just grown so much lately.
JC: It’s funny because Universal really treats him like the Mercury Players, they have their repertoire and he’s part of it and Seth Rogen’s another guy, Steve Carell came out of it. They fall in love with these guys and they want them in everything and Bateman’s amazing. The guy has been grinding it out since he was a kid.
Last question, Guy Pearce. You say you want White Jazz to be treated as something like a sequel to L.A. Confidential, which featured Pearce as Detective Exley. We going to see him reprise the role in White Jazz?
JC: I had a conversation with Guy about it and I am hoping he wants to do it.
Has he read the script?
JC: No, he hadn’t read the script when I talked to him. But listen, we have to keep it available and kind of open to because there are these rumors that there is an L.A. Confidential 2 that New Regency is doing separate from this, which I am obviously not happy about, but at the same time we go down that road I would treat White Jazz as its own separate thing. We wouldn’t have any character carrying over, but yeah I would really like Guy to take that part.
Smokin’ Aces hits theaters January 26, get more on it right here including stills, clips and the complete cast list! You can also get a bunch more with Joe on his blog.
