"A Kansas City Shuffle is when everybody looks right, and you go left."

Rating: 6/10 (6 October 2007)

Paul McGuigan's 'Lucky Number Slevin' was released in Australia under the title 'The Wrong Man,' and so you'll permit me to refer to it as such for the remainder of this review. The film, a hark back to the early days of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, is a slick and stylish crime thriller, with a clever plot  but probably not as clever as it thinks it's being. 'The Wrong Man' stars Josh Hartnett as Slevin Kelevra, a hapless young guy with the worst luck in the world. After walking in on his disloyal girlfriend, and being mugged in the street, Slevin goes to the empty apartment of his good friend, Nick Fisher (Sam Jaeger), only to be mistaken for Fisher by two gangs of rival mobsters  ruled by The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley), respectively  and asked for the money that he supposedly owes them. This is a quick plot summary that is partly correct, and partly a complete lie, but that's exactly the point. This is a film that relies almost entirely on its twisting story, and without it the film would be basically worthless.
The characters, despite an exciting ensemble cast of talented actors (with key roles also played by Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci and Lucy Liu), are basically cardboard-cutouts; nothing more than glossy caricatures. This, I think, is what drags the film a solid step downwards from the likes of 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,' both films with well-developed characters and ripper dialogue. 'The Wrong Man' is basically played for straight entertainment purposes, never really trying to be anything more profound, though you get the feeling that  with all these twists and turns  writer Jason Smilovic thought he was being a genius. In his defence, I will at least admit that I never saw the big twist coming. In fact, I was impressed at how the actual twist was handled. Usually, it is reserved for the final act of a movie, ending on a high note but almost always leaving unanswered questions and gaping plot holes. 'The Wrong Man' times its big reveal with about half an hour remaining, before investing a lot of time into explaining the little intricacies of the first half. Of course, there are still a few unsatisfying explanations (how did anybody work out that Det. Brikowski has been the assassin twenty years earlier?), but at least the filmmakers made an effort.
It seems a bit redundant to discuss the acting, since the characters were all so one-dimensional, and probably deliberately so. However, I will say that Bruce Willis was probably the most impressive as Mr. Goodkat, the enigmatic and highly-skilled personal assassin. Josh Harnett spends the first half of the film as the sympathetic, smart-mouthed innocent, but, by the end of the film, has somehow transformed into a dark, calculating shadow bent on bloody revenge. The transition is sudden and jarring, and it doesn't really allow the ending to carry any great feeling of resolution. The fact remains that we liked the original (innocent) Slevin infinitely more, and so we're left feeling somewhat betrayed by the path that the narrative has chosen. The mid-way switch from good-natured black comedy to bloody, violent revenge flick was also a bit mismatched. However, I did enjoy Lucy Liu's very natural performance as Lindsey, the chirpy and excitable young woman from the apartment across the hall.