By Justin Kroll
For The State News
Film noir, witty dialogue and plenty of sex and violence are the perfect ingredients for Paul McGuigan's newest thriller "Lucky Number Slevin," a film about mistaken identity.
Besides the clever script and smooth plot, the film is loaded with acting talent from a range of actors led by the ever-cool Josh Hartnett.
Hartnett plays our protagonist Slevin, who has just run into a load of bad luck that includes being fired from his job and catching his girlfriend with another man. His luck only gets worse when he decides to stay with his friend, Nick (Sam Jaeger), who is wanted by two crime lords for more than $100,000 .
Both of the crime lord's thugs mistake Slevin for his friend and take him in to see each crime lord. The first one is "The Boss" (Morgan Freeman), an articulate and suave gangster who likes to play chess. He asks Slevin — who he thinks is Nick — to do him a favor to pay off his debt.
"The Boss" wants Slevin to kill an opposing crime lord's son. The crime lord is Shlomo, aka The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley), and the reason "The Boss" wants Shlomo's son dead is because he believes Shlomo had his son killed.
Of course, as soon as Slevin is let go by "The Boss," Shlomo's thugs appear. They mistake him for Nick and bring him in to see Shlomo. Shlomo says Nick owes him money, too.
Besides these two crime lords on his back, the cops take him for a hit man and explain that if he does not go along with them he is going to be in deeper trouble.
Now, Slevin has to figure out how to kill the son of the man as promised without the cops getting a sniff of anything he is doing. Oh, and he has a hit man by the name of Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis) on his tail, who might want to kill him before he can do any of this.
Now this is no "Pulp Fiction" by any means, but it is by far one of the best films since to use its script and actors in such a clever way. The script is smart, especially when the actors share dialogue with one another.
Lucy Liu and Hartnett's first scene together has each throwing sarcastic jokes and witty dialogue off the other — it feels like a scene straight out of a screwball comedy from the '30s and '40s such as "Bringing up Baby" or "His Girl Friday."
The script might be quick and clever, but it is the actors that give it life. Each actor gives their character his or her own twisted touch, but Freeman and Kingsley shine the brightest in their parts.
In their only scene together, they show the ferocity and hate each has for the other. No wonder these two actors are considered two of the best in the last 25 years.
The only real problem with this film is that even though the script and acting are amazing, the plot tends to give too much away at the beginning. There are so many great twists — it's too bad that by the time they occur, the audience has already predicted what will happen.
Besides this problem, the film is an excellent portrayal of what film noir thrillers used to be in the past and what they could look like in the future.
