Slevin

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2006)

Two aging gangsters, once partners, have become rivals when Morgan Freeman's son is assassinated. It's thought that Ben Kingsley had it done so Freeman has who he thinks is a bookie named Nick Carter, Josh Hartnett, to murder his son in retaliation to cover an owed debt. Bruce Willis is Mr. Goodkat, a world class assassin who seems to be working for both Freeman and Kingsley..what his chief motivation could be is a mystery at the offset.
The key to the whole movie comes in a story Willis tells to an unfortunate who listens intently about a kid's father who borrowed from gangsters 22 grand for a horse bet he heard from his uncle(the specific horse, with an ironic name synonymous with the film, has been shot up with tranquilizers). That father and his wife are assassinated because of the bet, but we're not exactly sure about the boy child.
Stanley Tucci portrays a cop keeping a stake-out on both families, quite curious about why Hartnett seems to be in the hip pocket of both Freeman and Kingsley. How Hartnett is able to evade certain death is an unraveling of secrets that'll point out a lot of the mysteries concerning not only Willis' unusual behavior, but the reasoning behind his own.
Is Hartnett who he says he is or merely someone completely different than we could possibly perceive? Lucy Liu has an entertaining, but key role as a snooping coroner who falls in love with Hartnett as she tries to "help" him find out where his old buddy Nick Carter is.
You see Hartnett tells Liu that Carter offered him a place to stay after some catastrophic happenings in his life prior to the invite. Liu takes it that Carter has set Hartnett up for disastrous occurrences stemming from unpaid debts. The film plays on that for quite a spell.
This film has dialogue too smart for it's own good, but is entertaining to listen to. Everyone talks in riddles and seem to enjoy themselves, though the tone gets quite serious at the end as retribution regarding a past horror story is acted upon. Twists abound and there's violence aplenty. The whole last fifteen minutes consists of back story explaining every aching minute detail regarding the whole film's odd mysteries..almost everyone comes out corrupt, even those you don't think would be behind such murderous deeds. The film's set-up and execution is pretty preposterous, but I couldn't help enjoying it anyway.