In the vein of great pieces of Hitchcok, Snake Eyes succeeds, it has a mystery from multiple POV's and an excellent twist, which is character pitch perfect. Sure, Nicholas Cage plays an unlikeable character, a dirty cop with a woman on the side, but that doesn't make the fact that his old buddy Cmdr. Kevin Dunne thinks he's the perfect pawn and all the while, Nicholas Cage's Rick Santoro goes from pawn to in control of a wild hellish situation by doing one thing he loves to do, impress people. And so, in the efforts to try and impress people, namely his old military buddy, he does exactly what Sinise's Dunne doesn't want him to do. He acts like a cop. He does his job, and along the, discovers a pretty good conspiracy that can relate to our times. All the flash and style of the film, from the extended opening shot to the angles, lighting, color and mood help surround these characters in an overwhelming sense of chaos and thrills. I've seen a lot of de Palma's work, and I still think films like Mission: Impossible or the Untouchables or even Carlito's Way are better than this film, but it still does not fail to be a great movie.
Review of Snake Eyes
