Critical receptionEdit
Smokin' Aces received mixed to negative reviews. Although it was praised for its cast, action sequences, and soundtrack, the film has an approval rating of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 155 reviews, with an average score of 4.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A violent mess of a movie, Smokin' Aces has some of Quentin Tarantino's style but not much of his wit or humor". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". A.O. Scott of the New York Times gave a negative review of the film, stating that it is "a movie that may not only be dumb in itself, but also the cause of dumbness in others.... 'Smokin? Aces,' breathless to be more ? meaner, bloodier, funnier, cooler ? manages to be quite a bit less." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine, however, gave the film three out of four stars; although he noted that the film has "too many characters and too many plot strands" as well as an abrupt ending, he stated that "Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces is shamelessly and unapologetically a guy movie.... The result is hardly original, or groundbreaking, or even necessary, but it sure as hell gets the job done."