Lucky Number Slevin
2006 Directed by Paul McGuigan
Synopsis
Wrong Time. Wrong Place. Wrong Number.
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma. A film with many twists and turns.
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Not to be confused with the vastly superior film 'Lucky Guzzles Semen'.
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Film 9 of The June Challenge
"No small matter. Requires a lot of planning. Involves a lot of people. People connected only by the slightest of events. Like whispers in the night, in that place that never forgets, even when those people do."
First of all, this stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley. Therefore, it's pretty much guaranteed to be awesome. And it is.
This is one of those films where you're not quite sure of what's happening throughout the majority of the running time. Seriously, here's a 100% accurate summary of the first hour or so:
"Right then, this guy's talking to that guy about the other guy now this guy's talking about the other guy…
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WHY have I not seen this before?!
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So, is Josh Hartnett normally this good or is this a bit of a one-off? Because goddamn. In a film with a supporting cast as good as this, I was not expecting him to shine as much as he did.
This is a hilarious, twisty-turny, noir-esque crime comedy with a whole lot of parallels to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and it could very easily becoming just as much of a favourite as it on a rewatch. Excellent stuff.
Looks like I'm doing pretty well on that DVD Haul the other day. 4 for 4 at the moment.
Also: I'm a little ashamed at how often I forget just how beautiful Lucy Liu is.
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After spending a good half hour trying to explain the plot of Lucky Number Slevin to a friend recently, I realised how complex but utterly brilliant this film is. Josh Hartnett is the biggest surprise as he give his best performance yet, leading this film superbly and keeping us entertained from one minute to the next. Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Stanley Tucci, and Bruce Willis also have brilliant and well-suited characters, as the cast comes together really well to create an incredibly engaging crime thriller. The narrative approach is its biggest quality, however, jumping back and forth to piece the story together in a way that keeps you both guessing but also completely invested. It's definitely one of my favourites in its genre.
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Complex films aren't always my cuppa, but I can't fault this one. So much of it blew my mind.
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Fast paced, well written, albeit with too many twists, one of which was a little predictable, but a talented cast makes it worth the watch.
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A young man from out of town (Josh Hartnett) is mistaken for the friend he came to visit. He is informed by a mobster known as the Boss (Morgan Freeman) that he can erase a $94,000 debt by killing the son of his rival, the Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). Feeling he has no alternative, he agrees.
For me, this film fails on every level. Its enigmatic opening tips us off that nothing is as it seems to be, which can be intriguing if handled correctly, but here it comes off as if director Paul McGuigan and screenwriter Jason Smilovic are trying to be too clever for their own good. The revelations at the end throw everything we have seen up to…
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Film 9 of The June Challenge
"No small matter. Requires a lot of planning. Involves a lot of people. People connected only by the slightest of events. Like whispers in the night, in that place that never forgets, even when those people do."
First of all, this stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley. Therefore, it's pretty much guaranteed to be awesome. And it is.
This is one of those films where you're not quite sure of what's happening throughout the majority of the running time. Seriously, here's a 100% accurate summary of the first hour or so:
"Right then, this guy's talking to that guy about the other guy now this guy's talking about the other guy…
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Part of Cinebro June Challenge : #16
Now that was unexpected started off as a mediocre comedy but ended up being serious and a deep twist.
Very good cast with good performances -
En alguna parte le deberían poner: No te dejes engañar por su horrible cartel, o que en español se llame 'Asesino a Sueldo' , o Bruce Willis.
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Great setup - this really had me guessing until the end. It had the emotions to go with it too.
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A surprising film in more ways than one.
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An excellent hitman-caper movie with a great cast and enough twists and turns to keep you entertained while you try and put all the pieces of the plot together. My only grumble is that the script sometimes tries a little bit too hard to make the characters quirky and witty with long paragraphs of Tarantino/Richie-esque dialogue. Other than that, great fun.
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I saw 7.8/10 in imdb with 90k votes and my expectations were really high and not met... the first part of the movie has an unrelenting pace, several times you wonder wtf is going on and the tone is a campy gangster one in the style of Kiss kiss bang bang or snatch. However the ending changes the tone to something much more serious and the resolution of the overly complex plot line is predictable and not clever at all. Nevertheless I was thoroughly entertained.