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Film: Lucky Number Slevin [R] 104 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $12.50
When 1st Seen: 9 April 2006
Where Viewed: UA Twin Peaks 10, Longmont, CO
Review Dedicated to: John, James, and Thomas K. of Chicago, IL
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If you have read plot summaries or the tag lines for Lucky Number Slevin, probably you have been scratching your head wondering what the movie might be about. Let me say this, it is better not to know in advance. Instead, allow this film, directed by Paul (Wicker Park) McGuigan and written by Jason Smilovic, to just work its magic, envelope you with deceptive diction, and beguile you in its labyrinthine network of misdirection and deceit. From the first mysterious event--Bruce Willis striking up a conversation with a random guy in a train station using the line, “There was a time.”--until the last frame of the movie ticks by, this film will have you guessing. You won’t be wondering what the film’s about, but you won’t really know until the end. That is precisely what makes this film so good. Likely to be compared to The Usual Suspects, I found the film to be a bit better because, unlike T.U.S., L.N.S. does not leave you to draw your own improvable conclusions, instead it ties everything up slickly and puts in a fine antique watch jewelry box for you to ponder the rest of the week. In some ways, it reminded me more of The Sixth Sense than The Usual Suspects but with a happier ending. Seriously, this is the first movie since T.S.S. that I’ve wanted to go right back in and see a second time and try to figure out how I didn’t figure it out.
After the introduction of Bruce Willis in the train station, we meet the real star of the film and main character of the story—down-on-his-luck Slevin (Josh Hartnett). If you didn’t love Josh Hartnett before this film, now is the perfect opportunity to start. I have been wracking my brains trying to think of a cooler guy playing a cooler character, and I just cannot think of one—maybe James Dean in Rebel? Mr. Hartnett is all over this role, and he will have you eating out of his hands in no time. I just wish I could figure out how to make my messy hair look so cool. As for the very bald, and therefore has no hair issues, Bruce Willis, he takes the role of Mr. Goodkat (one of the more ironic names for a character recently conceived). Together they form the backbone of a cast that also stars Sir Ben Kingsley (The Rabbi Schlomo) and Morgan Freeman (The Boss) as rival NYC crime bosses, Lucy Liu as Slevin’s love interest, and Stanley Tucci as the trying-to-figure-out-what’s-going-to-happen police officer Brikowski. Sir Kingsley and Mr. Freeman—we need to come up with a way to give our treasured actors and actresses a fanchy-schmancy title to go before their names when they reach legendary status like the Brits!—are equally outstanding in their own rights. Their characters were formerly best friends of the same crime family, but something got in the way as they became more and more powerful leading to a feud and a fragile truce plunging both men to lock themselves away Rapunzel-style in facing penthouse apartments, across a moat of Manhattan streets, behind six-inch thick, bullet-proof glass for 20 years to ensure that neither would have a way of killing the other. The brutal assassination of The Boss’s son, catalyzes a series of events that commence in irrevocable succession culminating in the retaliatory murder of The Rabbi’s son. And, just when you thank that is that, it turns out that the catalyzing event was not the death of the Boss’s son after all, but rather the Kansas City Shuffle. Apologies, but to say any more would…well… would be to say too much. Let’s leave it at this…Confucius wrote, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” In the case of Lucky Number Slevin, you better dig many more than that.
This movie, in my opinion, hits theatres at just the right time. We have been in need of film that causes the parts of our brain rendered dormant by the likes of Slither and
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector to be fired up and engaged once again. The cast was outstanding—Josh Hartnett leaps from teen hearth throb of 40 Days and 40 Nights to nearly Heath Ledger status. The story was entertaining, engaging, and slick. The technicals were all major motion picture-worthy (cinematography, sets, costumes—costuming Slevin was pretty easy though for the first 15 minutes of the film--sound, music, lighting, etc. all great). Maybe some of this stuff we’ve seen before in one way or another, and maybe parts of the ending were a little too convenient. And maybe we would have liked to know just a bit more about this Goodkat character. Still, on the whole, this was a very, very good film. Oh, and P.S., it has a brilliant title!
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Lucky Number Slevin [DVD](2006) DVD
Lucky Number Slevin (Widescreen Version) [DVD](2006) DVD
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