“Smokin’ Aces,” from Universal is a good, not great movie about a would-be mob informant and all the people who want to kill him.

“Smokin’ Aces” is the story of Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven), a magician who has no choice but to become a government witness in order to save himself from spending a lifetime in jail.

The only problem with this is that the mob doesn’t want him to testify and puts out a million dollar hit on his life.

This, of course, brings every hit man and outright thug from across the globe to cash in on Buddy’s life. Standing in the way and the only chance for survival is an F.B.I.-headed task force (led by Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) whose only chance of making their case against a prominent Mafia crime family is to make sure Buddy remains breathing.

This movie has a great cast of established and up-and-coming Hollywood talent.

Everyone from Andy Garcia to newcomer Alicia Keys is in this movie, which leads to the movie’s first of many problems.

With such a large assortment of talent at their disposal, the filmmakers have a hard time introducing all these different characters, and give them adequate film time to flesh out their characters and make them interesting to the movie- going audience.

In fact, on more than one occasion, I had trouble keeping track of who was who and what they were doing in this movie. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some stand-out performances to be found in “Smokin’ Aces.” Reynolds is a joy to watch act opposite screen vet Liotta.

Keys also gives a notable performance as hit woman Georgia Sykes. “Aces” is Keys’ first movie. Although, for some strange reason, towards the end of the film, she seemed to forget she was performing in “Aces” and started to channel Whitney Houston in “The Bodyguard.”

Also of note were the performances of Chris Pine, Kevin Durand and Maury Sterling as the Tremor Brothers (Think of the Three Stooges, if they were heavily tattooed, psychotic and filled with PCP).

These guys were very entertaining and every time they were on screen they stole the show; the movie could have done with more screen time for these characters.

Ben Affleck has a blink and you’ll miss his role as bounty hunter Jack Dupree, who, along with two other bounty hunters, is out to nab Buddy before the hit man can get to him.

One of the biggest complaints that I had with this movie was the inclusion of an annoying karate kid wannabe Warren (Zach Cumer).

This is a disturbing trend in Hollywood where filmmakers feel the need to include some comic relief, by way of a small child.

The Warren character is not funny or entertaining; the character is, however, annoying.

The inclusion of this character is a waste of time. It’s characters like this that make me want to believe in the elimination of whiny hyperactive children.

The movie also had the annoying habit of speeding up the action one moment, and then slowing down the film the next. This caused the same nauseating effect as riding a bad roller coaster.

I’m probably not ruining anything by saying that “Smokin’ Aces” has a twist ending; the problem is that the ending is a confusing mess that hinders the overall enjoyment of the movie.

The bottom line is that “Smokin’ Aces” is a fun movie in certain spots and a bland, generic mess in others. I really wanted to like this movie more than I did.