What a waste of time

Rating: 6/10 (8 January 2012)

Slevin(Hartnett, in the one good performance of his career so far) has just moved into his friend Nick's apartment when he is mistaken for him, by two rival gangs, both of whom want to collect "his" debt to them. One of them, The Rabbi(Kingsley, who "tought he taw a puttytat") wants the cash within 48 hours, the other, The Boss(Freeman, who speaks in an incredibly repetitive manner) wants him to knock off(why not hire a complete stranger to kill someone protected by ex-Mossad agents, and who you want to make sure die?) the gay son of the other one, in revenge for his own offspring's recent murder. Unbeknownst to him, Mr. Goodkat(Willis, cool as ever... and yes, the names in this were thought up in about five minutes), the world-class assassin, is in town, and when he's around, people end up dead. So, with the aid of his new neighbour(Liu) he tries to figure out how to deal with all of this. Confused? You don't know the half of it. The tale is actually rather straightforward(and not particularly memorable), once you're told what's going on. It would be fantastic if that occurred more than ten minutes before the end of the excruciating 1 hour, 45 minute running time. Do we need to be able to tell what's going on(and I mean at all, there's nearly nothing in this where you know what is happening, who someone is, why which whatever, and we're given no reason to care) other than retroactively? Perhaps not. In fact, that idea could open up exciting new avenues in storytelling. Obviously, however, we will need something else to justify spending 90 minutes on something that is then explained in a sixth of that time. The lead? Nope, can't be it. We know literally nothing about him, and only find out anything, yeah, you guessed it.Ah, it must be dialog? No, it's a strain on anyone's patience, with lines that try extremely hard at being clever and fall flat on their face. Not only that, there is so much straight meaningless babble in this that you'll miss several of the few actually relevant lines. The slang makes parts difficult to understand, and it's too goofy to take seriously, or for it to establish an environment. Humor? It's terrible, there's maybe one joke(the puns and plays on words are cringe-inducing) that isn't overdone. Frankly, this is quirky(characters, situations, etc.) and contains one twist after another just for the sake of it. Do those qualities pass for interesting traits, and something well-plotted, respectively? Have we forgotten that fiction, mystery and otherwise, is other things than surprising the audience(as this does in every scene, where we literally typically do not know what's going on)? Keeping you guessing is easy(especially when plausibility is not on your list of priorities, as is the case here; there are holes in this, if one even wants to bother exploring it), getting you involved is not, and this puts all of its effort in the former, forgetting the latter even exists. Not only did I not want to learn more about anyone in this, I downright wanted them to be shot, just so they would *shut up*. The stylized cinematography and editing earns this one star above average, on account of there being next to nothing entertaining, enjoyable or engaging in this. There is a bit of bloody, violent, disturbing content, sexuality, nudity(and it puts a lot of energy towards offending several ethnicities, orientations and faiths), and strong language in this. The DVD comes with two commentary tracks(#1: director Paul McGuigan(informational and technical, some will find it dull). #2: Lucy, Josh, and the screenwriter(amusing enough, and it gives background)), a decent making of(13 minutes), 2 unforgivably awful deleted scenes(11 minutes total, if it will feel like ten times that), trailers(this, The Squid and the Whale, 16 Blocks, She's the Man, Arthur and the Minimoys, Stormbreaker, Crazy in Love) and an alternate ending(1 minute). I recommend this to people who need nothing other than to not be aware of what's going on to like something. 6/10