LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN **½

USA: Paul McGuigan, 2006

I must confess to being less than inspired at the time Lucky Number Slevin was released theatrically here in the UK. The media buzz I heard from radio spots and television commercials centred on the film being an unassailably cool and hip gangster thriller, with rising heartthrob Josh Hartnett at the heart of its box office appeal. Needless to say, I felt this was a movie I could pass up on seeing in the theatre.

Anyway, my sister recently rented the DVD and couldn’t praise the film enough. It should be noted my elder sibling and I have massively different cinematic tastes but her enthusiasm was sufficient to make me sit down and give the disc a spin.

The first half hour or so left me cold. I found the deliberately quirky dialogue laboured to say the least and director Paul McGuigan’s dependence on flashy camera tricky – such as frenetic editing and CGI assisted elaborate crash zooms - is an aesthetic so overused in mainstream cinema nowadays as to render it bankrupt of both meaning and effect. However, once the intentionally Byzantine plot was established and the film settled into its dramatic arc, I found myself warming to the whole thing.

It is understandable as such heavy weight actors as Morgan Freedman (a personal favourite) and Sir Ben Kingsley, can light up even the most bog-standard and derivative material. Here they play opposing crime lords – Freedman is THE BOSS and Kingsley THE RABBI - entrenched in their very own ‘ivory towers’ and headlong into an all out war revolving around betrayal, murder and revenge.

Don’t worry the film realises its strength lies within its ingenious plot and not social commentary. Thus we are thankfully saved from clumsy political posturing in favour of a succession of red herrings and plot feints, as Josh Hartnett – the titular SLEVIN – moves from unsuspecting victim to major puppet master: cue fast action flashback montage. To say anymore at this point would spoil the fun of the film.

So whilst I can’t be as whole heartily over zealous as my sister, I would say Lucky Number Slevin does merit attention, in that, by its close it executes a twist laden plot with aplomb and confidence. It falls short of excellence because it takes to long to settle in to its story and unsuccessfully endeavours to be cooler and cleverer than it is necessary.

IMDB reference