Leisurely paced, smart, off-the-wall thriller

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 2006)

I was initially wary of this movie because of the awful trailer that made it look like an unoriginal clone of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". Why are American trailers so damn formulaic? They rarely capture the tone, feel or sensibility of what they're selling. The "Inside Man" trailer missed the boat also. It did not capture the feel of the movie. It's like everything is being jammed into a template that some idiot once thought had value.
"Lucky Number Slevin", at least tonally, has more in common with Bryan Singer's "The Usual Suspects" than a Guy Ritchie film. It has a deceivingly languid pace as it sets up its protagonist (Josh Hartnett) and introduces the enigmatic Goodkat (Bruce Willis), surely one of the silver screen's most memorable denizens of late. The plot, which I won't detail here (nothing more boring than a long plot synopsis!), involves an ongoing feud between Ben Kingsley's "The Rabbi" and Morgan Freeman's "The Boss". Hartnett is sucked into their feud and is forced to use his wits to extract himself. Lucy Liu, looking mighty sexy and playing a coroner, offers him assistance and a warm vagina.
Naturally, nothing ends up being what it first appears, so that's the beauty of the exercise. Director Paul McGuigan, who helmed "Gangster Number One", brings a wry style and pitch to the drama, and, working with a really fine score by Joshua Ralph, creates a cinematic jigsaw that feels finely nurtured. The action scenes are swift and gloriously bloody, the performers all have fun (Kingsley is a standout), and the relentless plot revelations, though predictable in a genre context, never feel lazy.
The film did not perform any great feats at the box office, and I'd like to attribute some blame for that to the studio's trailer department. Dropping yet another fast-paced, graphic-heavy, ear-splitting piece of crap on the unsuspecting public didn't do this leisurely paced, smart, off-the-wall, unexpectedly dry thriller any favors.