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A case of mistaken identity lands Slevin into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city's most rival crime bosses: The Rabbi and The Boss. Slevin is under constant surveillance by relentless Detective Brikowski as well as the infamous assassin Goodkat and finds himself having to hatch his own ingenious plot to get them before they get him.
Josh Hartnett: Slevin Kelevra
Like many stories revolving around killing and revenge, Lucky Number Slevin likes to have everything revealed the further and deeper you descend into it. It's a applaud-able effort in screen writing, plot twists and a puzzle of revelations revealed.
Director Paul McGuigan succeeds in carving out this suspenseful and table turning crime revenger caper. I was expecting a repeat of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, stylish, slick, fun and instead got something completely different, but freshly original and crisp in its execution. The gangster style feels somewhat like Snatch with it's multitude of characters, but is coated with a lot of US styled humour in its writing and performances, making this a bold effort.
''I bet it was that mouth that got you that nose.''
The plot is a well-sketched template, but it is not really apparent until the end of the film, when pieces of the puzzle start falling into place The Usual Suspects style. The only thing you need to know is that unlucky Slevin loses his job and apartment, gets mugged and finds his girlfriend in bed with another man all on the same day. To top it off, he also gets entangled in a mafia-war between two prominent clans respectively headed by the Rabbi (Kingsley) and The Boss (Freeman).
''Ok, I'm under the impression that you're under the impression that I owe you 96,000 dollars.''
The two latter heavyweight actors chip in enormously in Lucky Number Slevin, and when they are finally faced together in a long-drawn out shot, and their different screen presences are juxtaposed, it is a scene so extremely powerful and engrossing that you want to obliterate Josh Hartnett just for getting in the way. Casting him as the lead character was overall just a bad move by McGuigan because he is too random in quality for an otherwise intelligent film.
The core of Slevin, however, is it's superb script. Funny, witty and as sharp as a Samurai Sword. Every single word and phrase is strategically placed for maximum assault on us the viewers, whether that be with its dry wit or sardonic mutterings throughout, or even the moments in which it harks back to archetypes and conventions of crime scenarios from previous attempts. The script and its dialogue provide nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it does an exceptional job of developing characters, tear away any feeling of apathy one may initially have toward the primary protagonists, creating the plot's undercurrents and providing the dark comedic aspect that the movie is built upon.
Lucky Number Slevin looked good and sounded awesome and viewing Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu and Bruce Willis fire up proceedings is always going be entertaining. To conclude this is a fun black comedy film and if you're looking to escape reality for a short period there are worse things available. If you're looking for an intelligent twister and well written conceived mob film there are better ones than this movie.
''I was thinking that if you're still alive when I get back from work tonight... maybe we could go out to dinner or something?''
8/10
