PLOT: A mobster puts a $1-million bounty on a Vegas entertainer-turned-stoolie, and every major hit person in the country converges on a hotel in Lake Tahoe to do the deed and collect. Mayhem ensues.

As Smokin' Aces opens -- with reams of explanatory blah-blah about the title character and the collection of mob bosses and freakish hit-men who have him in their cross-hairs -- one question becomes paramount.

That would be, "Is there going to be a test later?"

Worry not. Though there are a lot of characters to keep track of in the first act, overpopulation is not a problem for long in a movie as insanely gun-happy as this.

Smokin' Aces is a smirky, ironic gunfest that borrows vibes from Tarantino and Guy Ritchie and films like Lucky Number Slevin and Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. It seems an odd followup for director/writer Joe Carnahan, whose last film Narc was a perfect little gem.

This followup is more the filmic equivalent of a food fight, with a one-sentence plot -- mob boss puts $1-million bounty on stoolie Vegas entertainer, causing various psycho hitmen to converge on a Lake Tahoe hotel -- that is a mere setup for all the mayhem the budget allows.

Carnahan is not the first filmmaker to simply go nuts with gunfire, explosions and flying shards of glass. People such as Michael Bay and Tony Scott call that a career.

But he does have a Tarantino-esque imagination that raises the bar somewhat. Think two guys trapped in a hotel elevator wailing on each other with automatic weapons. (Did we mention this is one of the more violent movies you'll see this year?)

Ostensibly about to turn State's evidence, the title character Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven in his one-note Entourage scuzz mode) is holed up in a Lake Tahoe penthouse with three bodyguards, cocaine and hos. On the road to his Waterloo are a collection of hit-men (hit-persons?), all with different styles and relatively little commitment to the notion of doing their job inconspicuously.

One trio of neo-Nazi hitmen routinely shoots people en route just to keep their guns warm.

Besides the neo-Nazis, there's a trio of bounty hunters, led by Ben Affleck, a couple of sassy homegirl assassins played by singer Alicia Keys (slinkily flirtatious in her movie debut) and Taraji Henson, a knife-throwing Latino (Nestor Carbonell) and a spookily-pale master of disguise (Tommy Flanagan).

And bringing up the rear is the FBI, led by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta, on orders from their boss (Andy Garcia delivering an ill-fitting Southern accent).

Add garish cameos from the likes of Matthew Fox, Jason Bateman and Wayne Newton, and it's a pretty good cast for a director, Carnahan, who was supposed to be untouchable after fighting with Tom Cruise and getting fired from MI:3.

Smokin' Aces is frankly a mess, without respect for plot integrity or coherence, and with a contrived twist-ending reminiscent of Lucky Number Slevin. But it has its perversely fun, surrealist moments.

At the very least, it's nowhere near as brain-taxing as it initially appears.

BOTTOM LINE: A crazily energized mess of gangster set pieces, with a huge cast of broadly-drawn criminal freaks, and loose commitment to plot and coherence. It's not a brilliant followup to director Joe Carnahan's brilliant, underrated Narc. But this winking, ironic gunfest -- a bit Lucky Number Slevin, a bit Kill Bill -- has its fun, surrealist moments.

(This film is rated 18-A)
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