Lucky Number Slevin

Paul McGuigan takes an American spin on the gangster revenge flick he did so well a half decade earlier in Gangster No. 1. The result here is good but while it is no doubt funnier lacks the vicious edge that put the 2001 movie over the top. You will want to pay close attention, though, as almost nothing is as it seems.

Lucky Number Slevin has quite the cast. Josh Hartnett is the title character, Bruce Willis is a veteran mob hitman called Goodkat(?), Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley are partners turned rival gangsters called The Boss and The Rabbi (yes, Kingsley’s character really is a rabbi), Stanley Tucci is an NYPD detective, Mykelti Williamson is a dimwitted henchman, Danny Aiello has a cameo as a bookie, Robert Forster a cameo as one of Tucci’s colleagues and Lucy Liu is her usual sexy, gregarious self as Slevin’s accidental love.

The plot is a black humor twist of Hitchcock’s mistaken identity classic, North by Northwest, with Slevin standing in for Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill and Liu for Eva Marie Saint. Writer Jason Smilovic doesn’t leave the comparison to chance and has Kingsley’s character talk about taking his immigrant father to see it. But while we viewers know from the start that Slevin Kelevra is not the Nick Fisher the others seem to think, well, like I said at the top nothing is as it seems; Lucky Number has onion-like layers, an Outback Steakhouse Bloomin’ Onion, fried and big and greasy and still so tasty.

recommended