Darkly Entertaining In Spite Of Itself...

Rating: 8/10 (1 February 2008)

Thanks in no small part to the juggernaut that was THE USUAL SUSPECTS, the crime film genre developed a whole new subset of 'wisenheimer', noirish capers dripping with as much irony and faux-witty sarcasm as blood and brains, (as in on the wall, not as in the smart kind.) Many of these movies nearly break their own arms patting themselves on the back for their smug cleverness. Common attributes are: low-life gangsters with funny names, people on the wrong side of the tracks who talk sometimes as if they've read too much Sartre or Shakespeare, and double-jointed plot twists that always have that "Keyser Soze"-style 'GOTCHA!' at the end.
Into the fray, along with films like CRANK, SHOOT 'EM UP and the more superior LAYER CAKE, comes LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN. Only I'm not going to trash it, number one - because in spite of all the tough-guys-with-a-twist trappings, it's still an admirable little film, and number two - I have a bias I must admit to here. The author of the screenplay, Jason Smilovic, was one of the creative forces behind KAREN SISCO, one of the best detective shows never to be given the chance that it truly deserved, and he gets instant brownie points from me for that reason alone.
SLEVIN, in case you were in a coma and missed the oft-shown trailers when this hit theaters, is one of those 'mistaken identity' scenarios. Slevin (Josh Hartnett) is a poor shlub who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Breezing into town to help a buddy out with a business deal that's not going so well, he finds out how bad things REALLY are when, mistaken for his friend Nick, Slevin becomes embroiled in a deadly game of "an eye for an eye" going on between two major underworld players: The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and his former compadre turned bitter enemy, The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). Interested parties include Nick's neighbor and intermittent girlfriend, Lindsey (Lucy Liu in a role that's a far cry from her usual stuff, and a DECENT role at that!), a not-so-honorable cop (Stanley Tucci) and the mysterious "Mr. Goodkat" (Bruce Willis), a pro hit-man so badass that nobody even knows what he looks like.
Of course, in the same vein as THE USUAL SUSPECTS, nothing is at all what it seems - not the characters or even the plot itself, yet if you've seen enough of these things, you will know where this is going before it even reaches the halfway mark. At least director Paul McGuigan is savvy enough to just let his cast do their thing, which they do very well, (Freeman plays far too few villains, so this is a treat, and Kingsley will never rival his work in SEXY BEAST, but he keeps it low-key here. And Willis shows why he's becoming such an in-demand specialist in quick but memorable cameos.)
Hartnett does a pretty good job shouldering the lead role, though he sometimes seems so glib and clueless, you get a secret sense of satisfaction as various thugs and members of law enforcement smack him around at the moments that you'd actually like to. (There's a reason for his "WTF" attitude, but it's a spoiler, so you'll have to watch the movie to find out where it comes from.)
All-in-all, I've spent more time watching much worse movies. LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN is hardly the next "USUAL SUSPECTS" or "FARGO", but it'll do on a TV-sluggish Saturday night.
And just for any KAREN SISCO fans out there - keep your eyes peeled for a VIP cameo at the end by one of that show's most endearing players.