The advertising slogan for Brian De Palma's film about filmmaking, Snake Eyes is "Believe everything except your eyes," but it could be, "Don't believe your eyes . . . believe the video." This stylish, technically brilliant thriller is a celebration of the lens; it opens with shots of several different people on different television screens and hinges three plot revelations on well-placed cameras. Like Steven Spielberg's later Minority Report, vision and blindness are balanced with the new technology that enhances the scope of human vision while at the same time reducing it to something commercial and cynical. The events of Snake Eyes are set in an Atlantic City complex with a boxing arena, a casino, and a hotel, all of which are wired with so many surveillance devices that it's a wonder any of the sleazy, seedy people in the film are willing to risk doing business -- or pleasure -- there.
It's a fascinating theme for a movie, a direct opposition to recent debates over the use of videotape during trials (Rodney King springs to mind) and even the release of the Zapruder film: the assassination which takes place during the Snake Eyes opening minutes has eerie echoes of Kennedy's, from the doomed political official clutching his throat to the security guards looking vainly for someone to shoot at. In this movie, you can believe your eyes as long as you're looking from the right angle. Fortunately, there are so many cameras that sooner or later you always get to see that. It just takes a while to figure out whose angle to believe.
Director De Palma opens with a celebrated tracking shot that purportedly lasts twenty minutes . . . I wasn't counting, I was too engrossed in the action. But one doesn't begin to appreciate the footage until much later in the film, when one witnesses, Rashamon-like, the same scene from different angles and perspectives. The initial shot appears to be from an omniscient point of view, following Detective Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) through the back rooms of the Atlantic City complex and then into the arena, where he witnesses events that won't make sense until much later when he replays them over on tape and in his own mind. Of course, the opening isn't really omniscient, either: it's just the first take of the sequence.
What we see: Santoro tries simultaneously to charm his wife and mistress on the phone, cut a deal with the fight promoter, get a glimpse of a great boxing legend named Tyler, pick up a local cheerleader and confiscate cash from a bookie to make a bet of his own. Then he goes to the fight, where his old friend Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise) has arrived with the Secretary of Defense. The fight begins; the crowd is unruly; an attractive woman makes Dunne nervous, so he pursues her; an unknown woman takes Dunne's seat and says something to the Cabinet member; the favorite falls; the cheerleader calls Santoro on his cell phone, distracting him; the Secretary is shot; and the woman in Dunne's seat flees, her blonde wig falling away to reveal a young brunette. A Palestinian assassin with a grudge against the Secretary is dead within moments, so the film isn't a whodunit. It's a howdunit and a whydunit, "Dunne" being the operative unknown.
Santoro doesn't understand his friend, who's always walked the straight and narrow while he himself took kickbacks and cut deals. When he begins to investigate, he's looking for fame and fortune but he also has an honest desire to impress Dunne, who fears at first that as the military escort, he might be blamed for the shooting on his watch, and reluctantly agrees to Santoro's cover story. A look at the fight tapes reveals that the punch which felled Tyler was a phantom that never connected with the man. When Santoro questions Tyler, he learns that in order to cover his gambling debts, the champ cut a deal . . . apparently with the same woman Dunne was pursuing during the shooting. And so the chase begins.
We see the events from the beginning of the film again, this time apparently from Tyler's perspective, through a fish-eye lens to suggest that what we're seeing is subjective. But during the fight itself, the point of view changes again, and we realize we're not seeing through Tyler's eyes but within Santoro's mind as he tries to piece together events based on the accumulating evidence. This process is repeated as Santoro questions additional witnesses (there are nearly 14,000 who were in the arena). Because it's both subjective and distorted by Santoro's own expectations and desires, we get entirely different pictures each time the circumstances are replayed. Santoro begins to put together a political conspiracy involving the military, a defense contractor, and the women from the fight. For a corrupt guy whose ultimate dream is to become mayor of a corrupt town, it's a bigger picture than he ever wanted to see. At one point he stops the flashback camera because he can't bear to think about what comes next.
The film is rife with flashy overhead shots and ostentatious tricks with lighting, but it's pretentious with a purpose: to draw attention to the camera work, to make the viewer think about the role the camera plays in constructing a story. Some of De Palma's symbolism is heavy-handed; two recurrent images are a blood-stained hundred dollar bill and a giant globe with "Millennium" flashing across it which crashes to the ground in a hurricane (at first it signifies Santoro's dream world coming to an end, but given the film's anti-military theme, it has ominous implications).
Plus there's a plot device involving a camera affixed to a giant artificial eye -- an apt symbol for the film itself, in which "snake eyes" could refer to the distorted perceptions of the morally bankrupt characters, or to blind spots even the cameras can't erase, as well as the crapshoot metaphor. I was amused that the one virtuous character in the movie was blind without the lenses in her glasses. Other recurring objects with symbolic meaning include missiles, gemstones in rings, and (unfortunately) female cleavage. I don't generally like De Palma's treatment of women, but the only truly admirable figure in this story is a woman. And most of the characters end up with what they deserve -- this world is fairly ethical, though dark as noir usually is.
Cage puts on a good show but his performance doesn't become memorable until the very end, when, faced with betrayal on all sides and having been badly beaten up, his character unexpectedly discovers that he can't sell his soul -- not even for a million dollars. Sinise is a spectacular blend of sinister and cynical, with twisted but shockingly unselfish reasons for his own actions. The conspiracy plot itself doesn't hold up and there are all sorts of Hollywood conventions like having the big man personally hunt down his enemies rather than getting some thug to do his dirty work for him, but the rapid pace and visual virtuosity distract from the unbelievable scenario.
I don't think I can say enough good things about the film's editing. This is a "bottle show" -- it all takes place inside a single building, though the entertainment complex offers a great many visual delights. Although we see the same venues and the same events over and over, it builds momentum instead of losing it; the camera always cuts away at the perfect moment. This film contains one of the most effective uses of a split screen, working as a metaphor not only for the multiple perspectives but for the schizophrenic desire on the part of Santoro to reconcile two versions of events which don't compute. He can't, of course: once you know a punch is fake, you start seeing evidence of it even from the angles where it's not obvious. It's a dark world where not even the truth can set you free -- rather the opposite, in the cases of these crooked characters -- but it can shed a little light on things.
It's hardly necessary to talk about the mythic implications of the snake of the title, the view of a fallen world from the perspective of a falling man, yet the phony Eden of the entertainment complex is revealed as such throughout the film. And is there a God watching? Not likely, thinks Santoro, which therefore makes him responsible for seeing that justice is done himself.
