Kansas City Shuffle - whatever you do don,t ask!

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2006)

I had the unnerving experience of watching this and "The Salton Sea" on the same day - I don't recommend it, not a good combination!!Both are far too off the wall. However that bit of bad programming to one side, this film is an interesting piece of black whimsy. I enjoyed it (despite Sir Ben's somewhat OTT acting)though I had figured out the crux of the film during the initial flashback sequence to the horse race and the subsequent killing of the unlucky gambler, his wife and young son. If you like lots of shootings and dead bodies in your thrillers then this film is for you. The story hinges around a bad case of mistaken identity, or does it? As I say I'd sussed it out in the first ten minutes! As a piece of film-making this is an interesting effort but not a great effort. However Josh Hartnet was a revelation, I had no idea he was as good as that; Lucy Liu is also very good. And she and Hartnet bounce well off one another. The film is worth seeing if only for all the vomitary and migraneous wallpaper: straight out of the sixties. Loved also both the direct and indirect references to that great Cary Grant film "North by Northwest". The last ten minutes of the film are spent explaining how it all worked. Again I really didn't require any explanation but it was done so entertainingly I didn't mind being patronised. Bruce Willis did what Bruce Willis does best, i.e. being quietly menacing. Slevin may be no George Kaplan or Nick Fisher for that matter but he is an oddly engaging character. This is not the best film you ever likely to see, but it is fun and a great way to spend a miserable February afternoon. P.S. Don't ask a stranger what a Kansas City Shuffle is, that'd be definitely a bad move.