“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
-- Oscar Wilde
-- Oscar Wilde
I actually really enjoy Lucky Number Slevin. I have to get that out of the way so you don't misconstrue the next part: it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. The broad strokes of the twist ending are obvious fairly early in the movie, so while the movie is busy being smug at how it fooled you, it should have been reveling in painting in the details. Josh Hartnett stars as Slevin, a man who came to visit a friend Nick after having his life fall apart, but quickly finds that his friend owes the wrong kind of people a large amount of money. When Nick is nowhere to be found, these wrong kind of people wind up telling Slevin he owes the debt, since he was the only one staying in Nick's place at the time. What follows is a case of mistaken identity that moves at a leisurely, self-assured pace before its frenetic ending. There's a lot to keep track of with Lucy Liu's Lindsey the love interest (alliteration, yay!), Bruce Willis's Good Cat, Morgan Freeman's The Boss, and Ben Kingsley's (credited as Sir Ben Kingsley) The Rabbi all having various family members and henchmen who are central to the plot. Throw in Stanley Tucci's policeman just trying to piece all this together, and it's quite a cast of characters. |
Where the movie loses points is in its too-polished nature. Elevated shots of a parking lot have the cars packed too closely together, allowing them to show off an impressive array of colorful classics, but making it impossible for any of the cars to actually leave. The movie is filled with stylistic flourishes like this that serve to remind you you're watching a story being told. The dialogue, especially in the early-going is a tad too eloquent, especially in the initial scenes between Slevin and Lindsey. It gives the impression of a movie trying too hard to generate memorable dialogue and one-liners, but as the script settles down, the dialogue becomes actually quite a strength.
Where it earns its rating here is in the performance of Hartnett and Liu (besides the expectedly strong performances from the other big names) and the surprisingly believable chemistry between the two of them. A movie likes this makes me wonder how the two of them fell to varying degrees of irrelevance in just seven short years with Liu retreating to voice work and television and Hartnett being relegated to infrequent, low-key work following his two year flurry of Sin City, L#S, The Black Dahlia, and 30 Days of Night. Rumored to have turned down the role of Superman for the dreadful Superman Returns, his exile seems self-imposed.
Where it earns its rating here is in the performance of Hartnett and Liu (besides the expectedly strong performances from the other big names) and the surprisingly believable chemistry between the two of them. A movie likes this makes me wonder how the two of them fell to varying degrees of irrelevance in just seven short years with Liu retreating to voice work and television and Hartnett being relegated to infrequent, low-key work following his two year flurry of Sin City, L#S, The Black Dahlia, and 30 Days of Night. Rumored to have turned down the role of Superman for the dreadful Superman Returns, his exile seems self-imposed.
Once you've figured out the major twist, don't dwell on the predictability, but rather, enjoy the ride. With such an impressive cast, especially considering many of you may not remember its release, they can elevate a somewhat mundane twist to pretty lofty heights. The finer points of how all the clues the movie gives you fit together are still pretty enjoyable to see fall into place. Note: the movie gets a half-star bonus for throwing in a little reverential James Bond discussion.
A movie that isn't quite as difficult to figure out as it's trying for, but is pretty enjoyable nonetheless