Lucky # Slevin (2006)

There are a whole group of people out there who think that if a movie has a twist, the movie IS the twist, and therefore if you 'get' the twist before it's officially presented that makes what you've just seen a poor movie. You only have to listen to the carping criticisms of friends who guessed the twist in M. Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense (we've all got them!) to 'know' this is true.

So it's a very brave writer or film-maker indeed who warns the audience right upfront they are about to be deceived.

In Lucky Number Slevin film-maker Paul McGuigan does just that by having his assassin character (Bruce Willis) explain 'The Kansas City Shuffle' - a term for achieving something through deception and misdirection by guiding your audience's eyes the wrong way.

Fortunately, as with Sixth Sense, the twist isn't the whole thing here, and even if you guess the ending (I didn't) you'll have a fun two hours waiting for it to arrive. Not that this will be to everyone's taste. The overtly visual gimmicky style (if you hated Crank this is pretty much more of the same), black humour and cartoon violence won't be to everyone's taste, and there are times (usually when 'Sir' Ben Kingsley is on screen as a Jewish gangster boss) that it errs the wrong side of pantomime. But for the most part it's an entertaining two hours that will have you constantly trying to guess what will happen next and, if my experience is typical, guessing it wrong!

Josh Hartnett plays the Slevin of the title, although the lucky part really doesn't seem very appropriate, given that when he returns from work early, after losing his job, he discovers his girlfriend making out with another guy. Deciding to go visit a friend in New York he becomes the victim of mistaken identity when two rival teams of gangsters decide it's time for that friend to pay his not inconsiderable gambling debts, or face the consequences.

A plucky, and outrageously flirtatious, neighbour (Lucy Liu) provides some romantic interest to the story, but this is mainly a gangster film featuring Morgan Freeman and the afore-mentioned Kingsley as two turf leaders at war with each other, with the unfortunate Slevin getting caught in the middle.

Personally, I don't think Hartnett has enough charisma to be a believable leading man, even when he does spend most of the film wearing nothing but a rather skimpy towel - even half-naked he does nothing for me, but apparently your mileage may vary! That being said, his character needs to be laconic and chilled, and he pretty much fills that bill, especially here where he is required to keep his head whilst all around are, sometimes literally, losing theirs.

Liu gives her most fun performance in years, even managing to convince she's younger than her previous roles would have lead us to believe, while Snipes and Willis do what they usually do - pretty much play themselves, although that works too within the context of this particular film. Stanley Tucci also appears, adding some class with his portrayal of a rude, obnoxious New York cop - a role rather different from his amiable, gay fashion expert in The Devil Wears Prada

The critics seem to have been less enamoured with the film than I was, with the 'appalling dialogue' being the most-oft quoted diss in reviews. Yes, the dialogue isn't very real world, far too clever and unrealistic for its own good at times, but then the same is true of the plotting, the action and even the cinematography. This is meant to be a cartoon of a movie, and on that level, for me the dialogue - like everything else here - worked.

There are times when the film struggles to decide whether it wants to be a 'comedy' or a real 'crime thriller', but manages to tread the thin line between the two genres rather successfully in my opinion. Some of the funniest lines aren't in the film, but in the deleted scenes section of this HD-DVD, but I think they show that the director completely understood when he risked crossing the line, cutting the scenes he needed to, despite there being plenty of laughs in them.

The picture quality on this HD-DVD transfer is excellent and ranks amongst the best I've seen on HD-DVD. The extra's are pretty generous too. The usual fluffy marketing featurettes are here with a 20 minute 'Making of' and a somewhat misnamed 'Intimate interview with Liu and Hartnett' (It's only intimate in the sense that Liu gushes so much about Hartnett the viewer can only come to the conclusion that they slept together while making the film and that Hartnett has since moved on!). But the deleted scenes are the standout, as are two commentary tracks, one with the Liu and Hartnett and the writer Jason Smilovic, the other with director Paul McGuigan.

I really enjoyed Lucky Number Slevin, and hopefully you will too. The cast are excellent, the direction never dull, and the plot is a real roller-coaster ride. It's not an oscar winning work of deep, meaningful angst, but it's a lot of fun, and as such recommended.