Lucky Number Slevin
Directed By: Paul McGuigan
Written By: Jason Smilovic
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu

I walked into the theatre expecting to see a cool stylized thriller. The trailers for the film would lead people to this expectation. I left the theatre disappointed and bitter.

The film centers around a character named Slevin (Hartnett), who is in town to see his old buddy Nick. Nick owed some money to the city’s biggest mob bosses. Nick isn’t around and Slevin is mistaken for him and must somehow repay the debt. The gangsters are The Boss (Freeman) and The Rabbi (Kingsley). They’re two men who once worked with each other but have now become rivals. Lucy Liu plays Lindsay, Slevin’s quirky love interest who has some weird fascination with the TV show Columbo, and wants help Slevin deal with his new found problem.

The major problem I found with this film was the script. It’s obvious that writer Jason Smilovic has watched the complete Quentin Tarantino library. The film is filled with each character delivering their own Quentin monologue, and long discussions revolving around old movies and other pop culture references. It gets to the point where the film is basically saying, “hey look at me, look at my cool dialogue, isn’t it so cool?” That’s another major downfall. Lucky Number Slevin is just trying to be so cool, and it simply comes off as a ridiculous poser. The plot of the film is also very easy to figure out, and when its time for the big reveal you already know what’s going on, and the film makes sure you know what’s going on by beating you over the head with the answer. It makes sure everything is wrapped up.

The performances in the film aren’t the greatest either. The thought of Morgan Freeman as a mob boss sounds pretty cool, but something just didn’t translate to the screen. He wasn’t scary enough, I found myself lost in his soothing voice, which usually happens when he gives speeches. Josh Hartnett was again someone I had a hard time watching in this film. He’s so cocky at times that I just wanted to punch him in the face. Lucy Liu gives a decent performance and Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of the Rabbi was the one thing that I truly enjoyed in Lucky Number Slevin. Bruce Willis was playing his deadpan cool guy character that we’ve seen before, and in this film I didn’t really like it. This may come from some poor direction or maybe it’s just time Bruce Willis had a different role.

The action scenes in the film are fairly well done, they have that Guy Ritchie feel to them, but something is still missing. The film’s production design also really bugged me, some of the sets seemed to be straight out of a Tim Burton film, and they just didn’t belong.

Overall Lucky Number Slevin didn’t have me tearing my hair out, but it was also a film that I had high hopes for and it just didn’t deliver. The film tried to take elements from some really great films, and it just didn’t translate here. Although if you’re in for a few cool gun fights and a thriller that you don’t have to concentrate too hard on, then you might enjoy Lucky Number Slevin. — James

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