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www.filmireland.net - : Director Paul McGuigan (Wicker Park, Gangster Number One) is quick to set the tone for his latest movie Lucky Number Slevin. Spliced into the opening credits are grizzly shots of bookkeepers snuffed out in cold blood. We are then taken to an airline transfer lobby where a traveller's (Sam Jaeger) attempt to snooze is interrupted by a wheelchair bound Mr. Smith (Bruce Willis). Using gritty flashbacks to the late 70s, Smith recounts a dark and bloody tale of a family killed by mobsters when a man loses $20,000 at the racetrack. Smith introduces the term 'Kansas City shuffle' which is basically gamblers' slang for misdirection, and this forms the prime strategy of the script. more...
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filmfreakcentral.net - : I wonder if it's not ultimately a little too pat for its own good, but Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin is another slick, Guy Ritchie crime-manqué to pair with the director's breakthrough Gangster No. 1. It stars his muse Josh Hartnett (great in McGuigan's underestimated Hitchcock shrine Wicker Park) as the handsome Roger O. Thornhill/Wrong Man archetype--and it finds for Lucy Liu the first role that didn't make me sort of want to punch her mother. But the real more...
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www.boxoffice.com - : Involving an intricate, multilayered story structure constructed around a case of mistaken identity, ''Lucky Number Slevin,'' boosted as it is by a serious A-list ensemble cast and a heavy dose of intrigue, crosses the unfortunate line between clever and pretentious, rendering itself tiresome long before its heavily built-up denouement. Screenwriter Jason Smilovic's dialogue, which fills characters' mouths with fast-paced exchanges and protracted analogies, has been described in production notes as the film's ''heightened language.'' And while purposefully stylized and unnatural, the affected speech that becomes the pic's hallmark serves to distract from, rather than enhance, the genuinely gripping labyrinth of twists and turns. more...
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