Kansas City Shuffle

Rating: 6/10 (8 April 2006)

Greetings again from the darkness. "Pulp Fiction", "Snatch", "The Usual Suspects", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". Four of those movies were my favorite of their year and they are all movies that "Slevin" is being compared to. Sorry to say, but it is nowhere near that level and, at times, it is downright annoying how hard it tries to be clever. If you are paying attention at all, the mystery of the film is over within the first 10 minutes. At that point the only fun lies in putting the pieces together.
A tremendous cast of veterans such as Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis and Sir Ben Kingsley do an admirable job of creating the underworld tension necessary for the story. Lucy Liu plays, for the first time, an appealing character who actually laughs, smiles and speaks coherently. Josh Hartnett is well cast as the supposed down on his luck, you got the wrong guy, placed in a no win situation. The problem lies with Hartnett's (Slevin's) dialogue. No one in his situation would wise crack like this. The Boss (Freeman) and The Rabbi (Kingsley) call him on it, but never take the next step. This was the biggest obstacle I couldn't overcome. If this guy can't fool me, how does he fool mob kingpins? This movie tries so hard to be in the class of the aforementioned, but that makes Hartnett's lines even more painful to listen to. On the plus side, the set decoration is outstanding. It is a cross between "Laugh-in" and "The Brady Bunch". The wallpaper looks like something from a mid-60's Peter Sellers comedy.
It does have some fun moments, including the scenes with Freeman and Willis, plus Kingsley realizing at the end what all has occurred right before his eyes. Overall, it appears many are overrating the film, just because it wants to be better than it really is.