Snake Eyes is set in an isolated environment, which acts as a micro-version of the world we live in. There we see people relentlessly chasing after their dreams, even if it means stomping over their brothers and sisters.
In the first scene with Rick and Cyrus, the blood money symbolism is deafening like the storm outside.
The assassination shot breaks the smooth reality that Rick glides through so smugly. The first thing he sees after this wake-up call is blood on his hands. They are shown in a slow motion shot, that makes this moment a deep realisation of things gone very wrong. The ultimate existential problem is death and this is why Brian De Palma uses blood – to show the mortality of the characters.
The hands that erase the evidence are no longer under control of the human being attached to them. They are controlled by the insane mission that has taken him over. This obsession, like the corporate new world, doesn’t have any human values at all. This is also underlined by the tormented grin on the actor’s face. It’s disfigured and removed from who he used to be.
The final shot is a close-up of a construction worker’s hand caressing the concrete column, a part of the building that has swallowed the beauty of humanity. Maybe we’ll have one last flash of it, to remember what we’re missing?