Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early review for gangster flick LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, directed by GANGSTER NO. 1's Paul McGuigan and starring an esemble... Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Josh Hartnett, Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis and more... The early word hasn't been very good on this flick and it continues to get worse with this review from our spy "TJ Laser." ("Wow, can you do that, Dad?") The flick doesn't come out until March, so there may yet still be some tweaking done on the picture. Keep that in mind while reading. Enjoy!
Hello Harry
Haven't sent you a review since Black Hawk Down. For some reason I only ever feel motivated to write in when I really fucking hate something and Luck Number Slevin despite its pretty impressive cast is just such a movie.
Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Lui and Josh Hartnett star in one of the dullest most unbearable verbose and excessively violent films I've seen since Revolver. Actually it's the only dull, unbearably verbose and excessively violent film I have seen since Revolver but that wasn't very long ago.
Just how far down the food chain is director Paul McGuigan if he is looking to Guy Ritchie for filmaking tips but seriously I defy anyone who has seen both not to be struck by the similarities!
The film centres around Josh Hartnett's character, Slevin, who in a case of mistaken identity is compelled to kill the son of a mob boss by the leader of a rival gang. Slevin seems completely unfazed by all of this and although the reason why is revealed later on this has the effect of making it impossible for us to care about what happens to him. After all if he doesn't care, why should we? There is never any sense of peril which makes the violence gratuitous and banal rather than exciting and visceral. That's why I sat there thinking I was watching Revolver again, something which I honestly thought I'd never say.
Not one of the characters ever shuts the fuck up and gets on with the story. The film is populated by pontificating gangsters, quirky yet unusually articulate henchmen, blandly dressed buttoned up softly spoken hitmen, fuck there are even Hassidic Jew gangsters! There are also lots and lots of action flashbacks accompanied by voiceover and lines of dialogue repeated in different situations ad nauseum. You know the sort of thing because you've watched it through your fingers.
I'm sure the screenwriter had a lot of fun writing endless witty exchanges (some of which are actually quite clever in an irritating sort of way) between the protagonists, so much so that he made every character address each other in exactly the same way. This is incredibly annoying. People just don't talk like that. If they did then the violence that this film obviously thinks is so COOL would be the end result of even everday conversation because you'd have to be heavily medicated to tolerate for very long.
Incidently I'm not but may now need to be.
The plot is full of holes. You might want to start by asking why a mob boss (played by Freeman) would trust a man who has never picked up a gun to kill the son of his arch enemy (played by Ben Kingsley). You might also wonder why Freeman's character wants the hit to not look like a hit for fear of sparking off all out war when his motivation is the fact that Sir Ben's character recently killed his son. And if that illusion is so important why get an amateur to do the job? And why isn't he suspicious of the fact that Slevin doesn't seem the slightest bit afraid of him. You'd think a leading figure in the underworld would be a bit better at reading people. Which makes you wonder why doesn't Slevin at least act afraid in order to give his convoluted scheme a better chance of success. It might at least have helped us care about what happens to him instead of thinking he's a smart arse who deserves a good kicking.
The relationship between Lucy Lui and Josh Hartnett is unconvincing. It's not just the fact that they fall in love in one night but also because at times Lucy is very tiny and Josh is very tall and at other times they are more equally matched in height. These continuity errors are one of the more entertaining aspects of the film. Another is the wallpaper. There's tons of it. It's everywhere and I imagine it sucked up a pretty large part of the budget. On second thoughts they probably got it all second hand off the set of Revolver.
This is a pretty shitty review but then it's a pretty shitty movie. I didn't even pay to see it and still want my money back.
Call me TJ Laser if you want.
