Snake Eyes
Short description
Snake Eyes is a crime thriller set in an Atlantic City sports arena on the night of a heavyweight championship fight. Corrupt police detective Rick Santoro attends as a spectator, with money riding on the bout and a friend at his side: Navy commander Kevin Dunne, who is assigned to protect the visiting Secretary of Defense. When shots ring out and the official is killed, the fourteen thousand spectators in the arena become witnesses to a political assassination. Santoro, a man comfortable cutting corners, takes charge of the investigation even though the case lies outside his jurisdiction, partly to shield Dunne, who was away from his post when the shooting began. What starts as a hunt for a gunman grows into a knot of official power and betrayal, and Santoro pieces the killing together from eyewitness accounts, casino surveillance footage and the account of a mysterious woman in white.
Brian De Palma directed and produced the film, from a screenplay by David Koepp. It came eighteenth in a directing career of twenty-four features, arriving between Mission: Impossible and Mission to Mars. Nicolas Cage plays Santoro, with Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, John Heard, Stan Shaw and Kevin Dunn in supporting roles; the production credits 61 cast members and 132 crew.
The film was released in August 1998 and cost 73 million dollars, returning 104 million at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from around 93,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.2/10 from roughly 1,569 votes, both broadly in line with the critics' rating of 5.4/10 from 71 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The ages of the film's main characters, Julia Castello (Carla Gugino) and Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) – 26 and 35 respectively – correspond to the actors' actual ages at the time of filming.
- Will Smith was originally cast in the lead role, but he failed to reach an agreement with the studio regarding his fee.
- A drunk spectator shouts “It’s going to hurt now” during the boxing match. The same phrase appears in Brian De Palma’s other film, 'Carlito’s Way' (1993).
- “Snake eyes” is a term from the dice game. It means two ones.
- In the film 'Leaving Las Vegas,' Nicolas Cage's character orders a 'snake eyes' dice combination at the casino.
- The friend of Rick Santoro, played by Gary Sinise, is named Kevin Dunn in the film, and the actor who played the role of TV host Lou Logan in the same film also has the real name Kevin Dunn.
- At the end of the film, a large-scale scene of the casino being flooded was planned, but it was cut during post-production. Nevertheless, some references to the non-existent scene remained in the final version: Cage's character says at the end that he 'almost drowned,' the scene with the giant wave and ambulance remained on the screen, and the theme of an exceptionally strong storm runs as a thread throughout the entire film.
- During the end credits, construction workers are installing a concrete pillar. In the last frame, one of the workers removes his hand from the pillar, and a ring can be seen, which belonged to the red-haired girl.
- According to Kevin Dunn (who played Lou Logan), the fact that a character played by Gary Sinise shares the same name played a trick on him. Initially, a penthouse in a luxurious hotel was booked for him for the duration of filming. It was later discovered that a mistake had been made and the room was actually reserved for Sinise, forcing the actor to move to a more modest hotel.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
