Pay attention...

Rating: 7/10 (15 April 2006)

After a montage of killings committed by men whose faces aren't revealed, the film begins its story of a who, what, where, when and why mystery that we all know and love. Slevin(Josh Hartnett, Wicker Park)is staying at his friends apartment when the New York black mafia thugs mistakenly drag him to 'The Boss'(Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby) so that he can wage war with his arch rival, 'The Rabbi'(Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast) Why do they call him a rabbi? Because he's a rabbi, as said in the film it's self. Meanwhile, the nosy neighbor Lindsey (Lucy Liu, Kill Bill. Vol. 1) is playing Sherlock Holmes and trying to find the whereabouts of her neighbor, while getting close to Slevin at the same time. Not much can be said without ruining the ending, but don't think that that's all the film has to offer. Directed by Paul McGuigan the film relies a lot on dialogue and if you drift away for a second, you can definitely miss something. In every scene the dialogue flows in a rapid motion that quick and witty at the same time. For instance, Slevin's character suffers from the ability to worry, in which only naturally makes him a complete smartass. He questions everything that is said and answers everything with a smart remark that could be done without. The dialogue maybe quick but so is the editing, in which makes it easier to withstand all the jibber-jabber. One particular scene that I enjoyed was when Slevin was refusing to ride with 'The Bosses' thugs and after threatening to break his nose, the big mouth thug pulls his arm back and a shot of Slevin freezes and then cuts to him sitting quietly in the backseat of the car with an obvious broken nose. It lets the audience use their imagination on what the impact looked liked. There are several scenes that fade to white, fade to black and even shows a shade a red during a point-of-view death scene, But for the rest of the film, it is as if McGuigan has told the whole story straight through, but took out certain frames of the film and put them at the end. It defiantly makes the film a lot more confusing and rises questioning, but isn't that what mysteries are all about? Questioning everything? For the most part the camera motion was very mobile and was used for tracking a person at times as well. Back to the point-of-view scene that I referred to earlier, someone is shot and the camera is shown through the eyes of the victim who falls down to the side. Now it's not like the camera falls backwards but it actually looks like they physically dropped the camera on it's side, in which gives it that realism of what it would be like to be shot and killed. Kind of creepy, but effective none the less. The most stylistic trait that I found was that in every scene, the wall paper was very absurd and had interlocking patterns similar to M.C. Escher's symmetry paintings of the 1930's. But every room's wallpaper was different. In the friends apartment that Slevin was staying in, it seemed very outdated, similar to the whereabouts of his friend and in the apartment of Lindsey, interlocking flowers covered her walls suggesting that she is nothing but a flower herself. All through out the film, it seemed to flow very richly and everything was timed perfectly, whether it was when someone enters the room or when the music followed up the reaction of someone's expression gave it a predetermine flow to the film. Lucky Number Slevin has its own style with somewhat believable characters. I think that Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis are battling to see who can be cast in the most films in their career. Josh Hartnett does make a believable smartass that you want to know but hate to acknowledge. Lucy Liu has always been able to prove that she can play with the boys and I am always glad that she does, especially when she is the only lead female role. But nothing comes close to Ben Kingsley's performance as a Jewish mobster, something I could never believe, but now I can. He does a great job acting as does everyone else in this film, being that the dialogue is quick to follow let alone say. A good thriller mystery that seems to follow in the footsteps of other films like The Usual Suspects wouldn't be so bad, but to call it a Tarantino film shows the laziness of a movie-goers attempt to categorize this film.