Rating of
3.5/4
"Ace In The Hole" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 01/30/15
A fast-talking, unscrupulous newspaper man breezes into small town America looking for his big break and when he happens upon a man trapped by a tunnel collapse, he deliberately spins out the story for his own selfish ends. Ace In The Hole is Billy Wilder at his most despairing of human nature. The theme of the story is how human tragedy can be reduced to the level of entertainment for the masses hungry for a sensational story and how this hunger is sated by the selfish and cynical; themes obviously echoed in recent films such as Gone Girl, Nightcrawler and Gone Baby Gone. Aside from the victim and his hapless parents, literally everyone in the story has their own agenda and the result is literally a carnival of greed as everyone tries to get in on the action with little regard for the consequences. Wilder exercises his skill for snappy, hard-boiled dialogue and sharp, atmospheric photography which he perfected during his forays into Film Noir and Kirk Douglas' great performance is also reminiscent of his portrayal of the black-hearted but charming villain from Out Of The Past. The result is a brilliantly smart and cynical film very much in a similar vein to The Sweet Smell Of Success and Sunset Boulevard and is probably deserving of as much recognition as those two lauded classics.
