A horse that was supposed to be a sure thing dies on the track, and some gangsters take action. A man loses his apartment and girlfriend on the same day and then gets his nose broken within five minutes of entering New York. Two crime bosses have not left their apartments in 20 years for fear of each other, despite living in adjacent buildings and seeing each other every day.
It is disparate elements like this that make up Paul McGuigan's mistaken-identity thriller Lucky Number Slevin,\ a film with an all-star cast but a less than stellar final outcome. Complex and experimental, ""Slevin"" is a thriller with aspirations to be the next ""Usual Suspects"" or ""The Sting"" and has enough elements to do so, and despite being rather enjoyable, a handicap or two keep it from reaching that lofty goal.
The plot starts off simply enough, when Slevin (Josh Hartnett) is picked up by goons looking for his mysteriously vanished roommate. Unfortunately for Slevin, this roommate owes over $100,000 between rival gangsters the Boss (Morgan Freeman) and the Rabbi (Ben Kingsley), and both of them think Slevin is the man who has to pay.
Adding to Slevin's woes is Goodkat (Bruce Willis), a legendary assassin who appears to be working closely with both gangsters to personally inconvenience him, and a nosy neighbor, Lindsey (Lucy Liu), who finds the whole affair fascinating. To survive this mess, Slevin is forced to play ball and figure out what secrets are hidden from him—and pull out a few secrets of his own.
The plot and cast seem normal for a thriller, but McGuigan is not content to turn out a standard film. ""Slevin"" is filmed in a more experimental noir style than traditional suspense films, with a chronology that jumps back and forth between events that may have happened, just happened or are about to happen.
The camera angles add a great deal to the film, rotating back and forth between characters—a technique used very well to blend a chess game between Slevin and the Boss with a game between Goodkat and the Boss. It is an interesting combination, and one that works well to accentuate the machinations on all sides of the plot.
Unfortunately, this style of filming means that ""Slevin"" gets a bit full of itself at times, producing awkward philosophy and quotations that could have been pulled from ""The Matrix Reloaded."" The entire film seems like everyone is automatically at their wittiest and most metaphorical, and while this banter can be enjoyable at times—Freeman and Kingsley can make any line sound good—it gets tiring halfway through the film.
The lines are listenable, however, mostly due to the skill of the actors involved. Hartnett brings a dark charisma to Slevin, while Willis is right at home playing the gritty character he has honed for his entire career. Liu is the only disappointment, as her role feels more like a cringing cameo from ""Charlie's Angels"" and less like her icy brilliance in ""Kill Bill.""
Of course, ""Slevin"" has the obligatory suspense-film twists and turns throughout, which for the most part go in the right direction. Unlike some thrillers, the plot makes sense the whole time—despite a few inserted details that seem too coincidental to work out—and its conclusion has a few interesting twists to make the audience sit up and take notice.
Despite an intricate plot and a talented cast, ""Lucky Number Slevin"" tries to do too much and winds up tripping through holes in the plot and the script. It is an interesting film in many ways and certainly worth a viewing, but anyone expecting the next great thriller will find their expectations just short of met.
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