Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Lucky Number Slevin is a surprise of a film- It takes from the best, namely Hitchcock and Tarantino in its approach to writing and directing and boy is it a ride. Keeping things unpredictable and breezy Lucky Number Slevin is a riot of a movie. The acting from everyone from Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Lui to old veterans like Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley is great- you know they're all having fun. You should too- go see it.

I recently watched this film for the third or fourth time and after re-watching it wondered why it had taken me so long to sit down to enjoy it once again.This film is fantastic! It begins with just the right level of confusion/mystery, and once the pieces start falling methodically in to place you can't help but be captivated with how well all of it was put together. The story is good, and the characters - all quirky in their own right - are interesting and appealing.An incredible film that I would highly recommend!

(Flash Review)Not that Hollywood is always bad but this is super glossy, has big star power, has an overly engineered story and just feels trite. This movie has several twists, twists that cheat the audience as it doesn't really leave you any clues that you can trace back to earlier scenes; aside from the overarching plot arc which is abandoned for the majority of the movie. The granular twists come out of nowhere and you just have to go along with it, thus they weren't smartly interwoven into the script. And for a film with so many A-List actors, Hartnett is the main actor….Hartnett! and half the time he is wearing a towel and acting overly snarky. I'll give credit to the production crew and the cinematographer as the scenes looked bold and were visually striking however the pacing felt awkward. Overall, this tried to and succeeded in coming off cocky enough to think it outsmarted such classics as The Usual Suspects or SE7EN, for example, without giving you enough charm to care for any of the characters. In the end, I just cleared out some stale movie queue fodder which was only in their because the movie title was unique enough to stick with me from '06.

I remember the trailer for "Lucky Number Slevin", some sort of hit-man movie with some "Ocean's Eleven" style and humor thrown in. The real shocker is that it's absolutely nothing like that. There are hit men involved as well as some humor sprinkled here and there (primarily in the beginning) but it's much more of a gangster/crime movie. The kind of story that keeps you guessing (although, for anyone paying attention, the twist is pretty evident early on).What's disappointing is how seriously it plays the subject matter. For all of the eccentric characters introduced, and the humorous dialog in the first act, it really needed that levity maintained throughout. Once that comic tone disappears, it's a lot less interesting.To its credit, the late-hour twists don't feel cheap like I was expecting them to. But I feel like I've seen this story before. And a great deal of it is oddly lifeless.5/10