Pretentiously awful, Hartnett deserves better

Rating: 4/10 (10 July 2006)

"Lucky Number Slevin" is a fast paced comedy thriller about a case of mistaken identity. Slevin (Josh Hartnett) takes a shower at his friend Nick Fisher's apartment just as two rival New York mafia bosses (Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsly) send their thugs to collect on Fisher's gambling debt. Downside for Slevin is that both bosses are being controlled by assassin extraordinaire Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis). And from there, wackiness ensues.
"Slevin" provides good laughs and an intricate plot with a surprise ending. Though to the film's detriment, director Paul McGuigan and writer Jason Smilovic tell us the "surprise ending" in the first 10 minutes, so you spend the rest of the film thinking about how they're going to reveal the ending, rather than concentrating on the movie (maybe that's a good thing). One would think they would have learned from the mistakes of M. Night Shyamalan.
McGuigan lets the "mistaken identity" theme creep out into real life. Though, McGuigan is trying to be mistaken for someone else. Actually, two other people: Quentin Tarantino and Bryan Singer. McGuigan grew up idolizing Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and Singer's "The Usual Suspects," so he tries out his best impersonations of both and puts out what comes across as a sloppy fusion of the two.
But the cast keeps the audience's attention well enough to distract us from the cliché ridden plot. Hartnett is trying to grow up beyond the "boy toy" image he was known for in his earlier years, by taking a darker role. I found him to be entertaining and he should keep taking these quirky roles.
Lucy Liu plays the love interest of Slevin, and however noir-ish this film tries to be, she is no Femme Fatale, and is there more for comedy than anything else. Though in keeping with the theme of the movie, mistaken identity, this is a Lucy Liu we haven't seen before. While she still doesn't bring anything to the proverbial acting table, she does come off as a lot less annoying then she does in say everything else she's been in.
Freeman finally took a role which isn't God, or a wise old man or something like that. And he doesn't have to narrate, like he did in his past 7000 films. But he does seem uninterested in the role and this film. Willis plays the puppeteer assassin with a heart of gold, though like Freeman, he seems a bit removed from the film.
Again, here comes that recurring theme of mistaken identity. It's rough to see these two actors, both of whom I am a fan, take a walk on this. They seemed distracted, like the film was a waste of their time. It's not what I expect from these two. Fortunately they both have projects looming on the horizon that would return them to their more lively selves.
With so much talent and an interesting story, I really wanted to like this movie. I did, honestly. But the laziness of everybody involved (with the exception of Hartnett, who did his best with what he was given) dragged it down.