brian de palma's snake eyes stars nicolas cage's evil twin , who confusingly uses the same stage name as his talented brother . like a foreign tourist who screams his lines in english to ensure that he will be understood , cage yells with the ferocity of a man with a bad case of caffeine overload . de palma , whose last great film , the untouchables , was crafted over a decade ago seems to have lost his magic . in snake eyes , he manages to elicit some of the worst performances possible out of a skilled cast . only gary sinise rises slightly above the hackneyed material . the rest of the actors become caricatures in this by-the-numbers thriller . ryuichi sakamoto's atmospheric and melodramatic music dominates almost every scene . heavy on the long violin notes , its rhythm is punctuated by thunder . ( the script by de palma and lost world's david koepp sets the action during a hurricane in an attempt to pump up the adrenaline level and the noise . only the latter is achieved . ) cage plays rick santoro , a corrupt atlantic city cop who shakes down criminals to get betting money . the movie takes place over a single evening when a world championship fight is being held . with a flashy , bad wardrobe and a gold cell phone , rick is an obnoxious cop who doesn't know when to shut up . spouting cliched and ridiculous dialog , he screams such lines as , " i was made for the sewer , baby ! " actually the line is more apropos for the movie as a whole . sinise plays kevin dunne , a naval officer who is in charge of the security for the secretary of the navy , who has come to watch the fight . but most people in the film are not who they seem to be , and the thin script makes all of them easy to guess . the plot , which is told in endless flashbacks , concerns the assassination of the secretary through a scheme set up by some malevolent businessmen ? that adjective is , of course , redundant in hollywood thrillers . the flashbacks become repetitious with the same scene shown again and again , sometimes from a different perspective and sometimes not . although a brian de palma film requires a certain amount of gratuitous violence , this one is remarkably tame for the man who became famous when he made carrie . the movie's outline has some promise , but the movie itself is leaden . the film takes itself all too seriously . at best , it is a 1940s-style b movie . a little humor would have helped the script some , but a complete rewrite would have been better . and , although i hate to say it , a different director would have been the biggest improvement . snake eyes runs 1 : 39 . it is rated r for violence and would be acceptable for teenagers .
