And once again, I am disappointed with what could have been a potentially cool movie. I always do this to myself when I see trailers, I expect more than I should. For a couple movies, I wasn\'t disappointed, but for this, it really isn\'t worth the time of day.
Basically, the movie is about a case of mistaken identity where two gang bosses are looking for some one, Nick, and instead they end up with Slevin who apparently has no idea what\'s going on. He comes into town after being called in by his buddy Nick and crashes at his apartment. The next day he\'s brought over to the Boss and the Rabbi to give them some money that he owes. Of course Slevin has no idea and has to make a deal with the two before either side kills him. And of course we have Mr. Goodkat the stealthy assassin the background seemingly controlling all the proceedings. Lindsey too is drawn into the plot as she knows Nick and later on begins to fall for Slevin. Oh my my, what a tangled web we weave. So, the deal is Slevin has to kill the Rabbi\'s son and in exchange he\'ll erase the debt. And for the Rabbi, Slevin has no choice but to pay the money, how will he ever get by? Well the movie is more predictable than you think, but I don\'t want to give away the movie for those who are interested, so let\'s just stay that the bad guys die and the good guy gets the girl. Typical noir plot.
Now there are some pretty cool shots in the movie. And most of them involve Bruce Willis. Apparently he was happy with the way the movie turned out and he kind of plays a different character. Instead of a disgruntled cop, he plays an assassin, and yet I still can\'t see how it\'s such a change from his other characters, but that\'s just me. The major flaw of this movie is the dialogue. It\'s just trying so hard to be sassy and witty and everything at the same time that it just jumbles together. The way people talk in this movie makes no sense, no one talks like that in real life. And granted it is supposed to be a film noir, and yet it still doesn’t work in that vein either. For example, the first time Lucy Liu meets Hartnett she asks for a cup of sugar and then he asks where is her cup and she proceeds to say that if she had a cup she only would have asked for sugar not a cup of sugar. Slevin talks way too much and way too calmly for some one who has his life threatened by two major gang bosses. And even though I love both Freeman and Kingsley, I just couldn’t like their characters in this movie because of the way they spoke and addressed other people. I can’t even think of any lines to quote, and I am a master movie quoter, that’s how bad the dialogue was. Probably the only person I did like in the movie was the cop, or maybe even the Rabbi’s son. It doesn’t even matter. These characters have no depth and no personality. It’s like the director and writer were trying to much to copy from Tarantino but the couldn’t quite get it just right, so it turned out unbearable instead.
This is not to say that everything is horrible. There are some ok action sequences and a couple of funny lines (here’s one I remember, my mistake about not knowing any lines. Slevin says that bad things come in threes, the third thing that happened to him was that he caught his girlfriend cheating on him. In the flashback, he walks in and interrupts. His girlfriend says “It was an accident,†and Slevin says “Oh like you tripped and he fell on top of you?†Probably the only quotable thing in the movie). There certainly will not be anything memorable about the movie so I suggest renting it on DVD. The twist is predictable, the plot is lacking, and the dialogue could have been a lot better. And the title, my god, the title, was that the best they could do? I understand where it comes from, but still, really? Also if you’re looking for a lot of bloody violence, this is not the greatest movie. Yeah there is a beating scene, and yeah you see people get shot and you see blood, but it’s nothing ridiculous. So my decision, rent the DVD, it’s not worth spending the money to see in theaters.
"Lucky Number Slevin" opens April 7, 2006 and is rated R. Action, Drama. Directed by Paul McGuigan. Written by Jason Smilovic. Starring Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Stanley Tucci, Lucy Liu.
