Lucky Number Slevin

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

It’s all Se7en‘s fault. Someone knocking together a poster somewhere cottoned on to the fact that a slightly deformed V lying on it’s side looks like a seven, if you squint a bit, and it’s been downhill from there on. Th1rt3en Ghosts? Thank you, drive through. It’s with utter disdain, then, that we welcome Lucky Number S-Upsidedown-Seven-evin to the “numbers aren’t letters” rouge’s gallery of shitty posters. Still, let us try to put this offence to humanity aside while we consider the film more sensibly referred to as Lucky Number Slevin

Slevin (Josh Hartnett) hasn’t been having the best of weeks. Escaping the memory of his girlfriend’s screwing around by running off to a friend’s apartment in Noo Yawk, he’s mugged, punched in the hooter, had his wallet pilfered and his mate appears to have mysteriously vanished from his home. Things get worse when, in a textbook case of mistaken identity goons in the employ of The Boss (Morgan Freeman), head honcho of half of the racketeering in the city drag him for an audience where he’s informed that he’s inherited his mate’s gambling debts in the absence of any proof that he’s not who they claim he is. Unable to stump up the required grandage, Slevin’s offered a way out. Assassinate the son of The Rabbi (Sir Ben Kingsley), head honcho of the other half of the racketeering in the city.

Things get worse when, in a textbook case of mistaken identity goons in the employ of The Rabbi drag him for an audience where he’s informed that he’s inherited his mate’s gambling debts in the absence of any proof that he’s not who they claim he is. Unable to stump up the required grandage, Slevin’s offered a way out. Assassinate the The Boss.

Wow! Things are getting extraordinarily messy already, and we’ve not even mentioned the other hitman emerging mysteriously from the shadows on a frequent basis, Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis) and the coroner / love interest from over the hall who tries to help Slevin through this little episode, Lindsey (Lucy Liu), or the exasperated cops headed by Stanley Tucci trying to work out how Slevin’s story will end along with the bulk of the audience.

Lucky Number Slevin isn’t half bad. In fact, it’s slightly over half good, and the remainder bad. While it knocks around in a pleasing whirlwind of developments for about an hour, being intermittently shocking, often amusing but never less than entertaining, it just does not know where to draw the line. By the time the credits roll everything has become so ludicrously nested, contrived and convoluted that suspension of disbelief becomes too much of a hassle to deal with and you rather swiftly stop caring about anyone involved in the whole sorry affair. It might even be enough to convince you that you didn’t care about them in the first place, but in all probability you did.

That said, it does the whole twisty-turny narrative thing better than most of it’s brethren (yes, Basic, we are looking at you, although I wish to Bernard Cribbins we weren’t) and it’s orders of magnitude better than Guy Ritchie’s last, vaguely similarly themed outing.Whether it should have bothered is another thing entirely, especially as it’s the only weak link of note in the whole film.

It’s a fine ensemble performance all round, even from the folks you might not necessarily expect. The undeniably talented although increasingly patchy Morgan Freeman actually makes the effort here, and Lucy Liu displays a charm and warmth that’s not altogether characteristic of her turns. Willis, as always, is a rock but the biggest plaudits have to go to Josh Hartnett, of whom great things are rarely expected and rarely delivered, but he’s in fine fettle here.

Good grief. I’ve just used the word ‘fettle’.

Director Paul McGuigan moves things along at a breathless pace, perhaps hoping to dizzy us with enough plotline revelations that the nagging voices in the back of your head telling you that it’s clutching for straws will shut up. This may not be a problem for those who do not routinely hear voices in their heads. Everything has a strange 70’s themed charm that’s unusual but endearing (something strange also being unusual? Great writing there, chump! ohnonotagaiinshutupshutupshutup) and there’s enough violence and swearing on display to make things feel gratifyingly, gratuitously adult oriented (Yeah, swearing, that’s all grown up and clever, isn’t it? You worthless, miserable sack of I MUST NOT FEAR FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER MUST NOT KILL MUST NOT KILL MUST nOT KiLL).

All in all, Lucky Number Slevin is the sort of enjoyable, pulpy guilt pleasure that you don’t get very often these days, and typically when someone attempts it you wind up with Shitty Paul Walker Vehicle. It’s flawed, yes, almost fatally, but the first half is certainly enjoyable enough for all but the most curmudgeonly to forgive it, enjoy it and head to the nearest clock tower with an assault rifle and start taking potshots because the blood is the only thing that stops the voices and it’s what they want yest hey all have to pay! the voicesknow and guide and know and it’s so quiet now, so quiet, they’ve gone! theyve gone

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY