"Lucky Number Slevin" - Critics vs. Audience

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2007)

Paul McGuigan's "Lucky Number Slevin," starring Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, and Lucy Liu, was awarded Best Film at the 2006 Milan International Film Festival. Internet Movie Database user BigStuff2020 reports, "I was lucky enough to have seen this at a screening back in December, and the entire theater started to applaud at the conclusion of the film." You'd think that the critics would have liked it, too. But no.
"'Lucky Number Slevin' is a crime thriller-plus-con job that might be too slick and clever for its own good," according to Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honneycutt. "The movie risks alienating its audience initially with a welter of confusing story lines, dead bodies and random characters."
So the movie's beginning is problematic.
"The performances are juicy," says Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. "But the convoluted ain't-I-clever script by Jason Smilovic has a cheat ending that makes you want to do a little torturing yourself."
So the movie's ending is problematic. And the script is too clever.
Stephen Holden of the NY Times characterizes Slevin as a failed Pulp Fiction wannabe. "From its sly, amused performances to its surreal comic book gloss to its artfully nervous camera-work 'Lucky Number Slevin' sustains the blasé tone and look of a smart-aleck thriller that buries its heart under layers of attitude. When the movie makes a belated stab at sincerity in the closing scenes, it's too little, too late."
So the ending is not only a cheat, it's disappointing as well. And the movie is too darn artful.
Unkindest cut of all, Roger Ebert gave Slevin a thumping thumbs-down. "'Lucky Number Slevin' is too clever by half. It's the worst kind of con: It tells us it's a con early on, so we don't even have the consolation of being led down the garden path."
So the beginning is also problematic because it gives the audience a hint as to what the movie is really about.
Ebert goes on: "'Lucky Number Slevin' goes to some pains to make it clear it is only an exercise in style."
Why "only"? What's the matter with an exercise in style?
Ebert sure exercises his own style: "Here we are looking at a crime mystery involving warring hoodlums and beautiful neighbors and a confused guy from out of town and a gunman and a cop, and the movie knows we're deluded and they're all just conceits. It's smarter than we are. Well, it must be, because it got us to watch it."
"Just conceits." Ebert is smart enough to know that "conceit" is a literary-criticism term meaning, "an elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image." And of course he's accusing the movie-makers of conceit, too. Too clever by half. But, again, why "just"? And if literary ingenuity is okay for a film critic, why is it out of place in a film?
Ebert continues grinding the unlucky Slevin under his thumb: "When a movie makes it clear that its characters are going through a charade for the amusement of the director (and when the characters themselves make it clear they all but know they are actors in a movie), I get restless: They're having such a good time with each other, why do they need me? Then when there's a level of trickery even beyond the apparent foolery -- reader, I feel like they're yanking my chain."
Wow. Actors, director, smarty-pants script writer  the whole merciless gang - yanking Roger's chain.
As for me, I'm reminded of a Shakespeare article, "'Hamlet,' Mirror for the Critics." Its point was that criticism of a work reveals at least as much about the critics as it does about the work. Critics are a literary lot, perhaps vain of their own cleverness. Along comes a movie that reminds them of that common failing  We all think we're smart, right? And out come the knives, ready to carve that turkey in the mirror.
I enjoyed "Lucky Number Slevin." I'm with the IMDb User from Romania: "A very well conceived popcorn flick, which connects all the dots." And IMDb User Matt Cub from the UK: "Great stuff."
Popcorn flick. Maybe all those problem-hunting, hyper-critical critics should have been given a big tub of popcorn when they came in. And a big dose of common sense, too. When an experienced director, three mega-talented actors, and two gifted newcomers all read through a script and decide that it will make a first-rate movie  then that is exactly what it might turn out to be.