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Lucky Number Slevin
EMAILPRINTThe Weinstein Company

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 86 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Jason Smilovic
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 7, 2006
DVD: September 12, 2006
Running Time: 109 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong violence, sexuality and language
Starring Josh Hartnett, Stanley Tucci, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Kevin Chamberlin, and Oliver Davis
Lucky Number Slevin is a thriller that twists and turns its way through an underworld of crime and revenge. Set in New York City, a case of mistaken identity lands Slevin (Hartnett) into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city's most rival crime bosses. (The Weinstein Company)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Gangster No. 1 The Acid House The Reckoning Wicker Park
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Hartnett has been stuck in the young-adult heartthrob mode for some time now, but this comic thriller may launch him into meatier fare.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
The talk is witty, the twists are ingenious, the look and the mood are drop-dead.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Some of what occurs in Lucky Number Slevin is done with a wink and a nod, although McGuinan (á là Tarantino) doesn't skimp on the gore.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
This pop-culture-infused mistaken-identity thriller ultimately grabs hold and beguiles, though its convoluted plot takes a while to get going.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Smilovic's rapid-fire, Tarantino-esque dialogue is consistently razor-sharp, and the elaborate set design - which leans heavily towards shiny, riotously patterned wallpaper - is an eyeball-jangling blast.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Lucky Number Slevin would be too clever for its own good if it weren't so ... darn clever. This violent flick is not in the same league as "The Sting," which has my vote for the cleverest winding road toward a happy ending in screenwriting history, but it contains nearly as deft a con job as that 1973 film.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Neva Chonin
For the most part, though, it works as a clever thriller that entertains through purposeful misdirection.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The film is stylish as hell with sharp dialogue, a tongue-in-cheek plot and visual and editing razzle-dazzle.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
The story never runs completely off the rails and is, in any event, just a pretext for a lot of very sharp badinage by Jason Smilovic--a screenwriter who would have been at home writing for Cary Grant--for yards of terrific movie acting and for some well-timed direction by Paul McGuigan.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A thriller that holds less interest - and less water - the more it reveals about what's actually going on.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
They almost got it really right with Lucky Number Slevin, but they also almost got it horribly wrong.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The most original thing about Lucky Number Slevin is that it lets Lucy Liu play a screwball heroine.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
With its diabolical ending, this is the movie equivalent of a crossword puzzle: fun, clever, and disposable.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Jeremy Mathews
Unfortunately, director Paul McGuigan tries to make it all serious at the end, and this isn't the kind of story that should be taken seriously.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
Thoroughly -- and sometimes justifiably -- infatuated with its own cleverness, this mistaken-identity thriller delights in narrative complication and Tarantino-esque self-awareness.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
From its sly, amused performances to its surreal comic book gloss to its artfully nervous camerawork, Lucky Number Slevin sustains the blasé tone and look of a smart-aleck thriller that buries its heart under layers of attitude.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
It's all superficially enjoyable, right up to the point where the big picture starts coming into focus and it's not worth looking anymore.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It's the soulless quality of so many films that value devious plots, smug deception and quirky personality traits over actual story and character.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Features lots of cool dialogue but doesn't provide much of a movie in which to showcase it.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Declarative sentences are as scarce as detectable feelings in this stylish, emptyish thriller -- it's Tarantino with the vital juices left out.
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
There's just too much death, it comes too quickly, it has no moral import, it becomes ultimately meaningless. It's not that hyper-violent movies are axiomatically a bad thing, it's just that this particular example is so laden with shootings that it becomes somehow tedious.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Too clever by half. It's the worst kind of con: It tells us it's a con, so we don't even have the consolation of being led down the garden path.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Lucky Number Slevin is a bag of nerves. Everything here is too much. The older the actors, the saltier the ham of their performances.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
If "Pulp Fiction" impregnated "The Usual Suspects," the spawn would look a lot like Lucky Number Slevin. Great genes, but you keep wondering when the kid is going to grow up and find an identity of his own.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Cursed--but ironically!--with stomach-churning '60s decor, Slevin might round off in Park Chanwook country, but the lingering sense of it is as an amusement park for the actors, who are as infectiously overjoyed for the bouncy badinage as preschoolers on Christmas morning. Like tired parents, our enjoyment is primarily vicarious.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A smug, deliberately convoluted mix tape of Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Guy Ritchie and Hitchcock with (mostly) a cast to die for, Lucky Number Slevin is great fun for, say, 20 minutes.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Danny Aiello and Robert Forster also turn up in tiny roles that further serve to distract attention from the real business at hand.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Comes packed with so many plot twists and reversals, there's barely any room left over for a story: The movie is all clever gotchas and hoodwinks, without any substance to go along with them.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
Lucky Number Slevin is an attempted cinematic sleight-of-hand that has its moments, but is finally just plain annoying, wearing its influences too broadly on its sleeve.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Overwritten, over-designed, and too clever by 200 percent, the film does offer the pleasure of actors enjoying themselves.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
With its wiry twists and turns, ends up buckling under the weight of its own cleverness.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The proverbial seems awfully pale here. Fans of Q.T. will find it patently derivative. Fans of Elmore will find it, well, El-less.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The pretzeled syntax is fun for a while. But as the holes are filled in, the film stands revealed as just another vacuous revenge picture. It shrinks your perception of what movies can do.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Is Josh Hartnett attracted to cinematic bombs, or do movies merely self-destruct once he signs on as the leading man?
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Weinstein Co. honchos Bob and Harvey are chasing some of the old "Pulp Fiction" magic--and failing not only miserably, but kind of disgustingly.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 86 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jinx A gave it a10:
The witty dialogue in this movie is addicting, and the characters are very well defined. The art design and visual themes are brilliant and unique. One of the greatest things about this movie is how re-watchable it is.
Stephen G gave it a2:
Completely derivative. Desperately trying to be as intelligent and surprising as The Usual Suspects and as artsy and intriguing as Pulp Fiction, this film fails on all counts. Enjoyable if you haven't seen the movies whose shoulders this film stands or don't mind the cartoonish cast of characters.
topsy k gave it a10:
Lucky number slevin is an outstanding film full of action and twist that will have you wondering what just happend. If you liked movies such as "the prestige", "the departed", or "reservoir dogs" you will love this movie from start to finish. The only negative thing i could say about this movie is that i did not like lucy lu in it.
kern gave it a10:
Brilliant, twist laden screenplay with witty dialogue. It's a shame that scripts like this do not win the awards they deserve. Whip crack direction maximizes impact, speed, humor, deception, and ultimate clarity. Every aspect of story is wrapped up satisfyingly. Great cast plays it to the hilt.
Xavier L gave it a10:
Don't trust movie critics! Great writing &plot, great acting, great art direction. The problem with movie critics is that they're in love with Quentin Tarantino and normal people thing he's good, but so pretentious, it's distracting and makes you want to hurl. So when a movie looks like it's remotely Tarantinesque, the critics who couldn't be directors come to the rescue of their idol and kill Slevin.
karl_ravage ravage gave it a5:
worst dialogue ever!!!! overtly homophobic. ntl Josh Hartnet held his own w/ a great group of actors who must have been bribed w/ a large movie budget.
Felix K gave it an8:
I wouldn't have expected this movie to be so good. But I really regret that I've seen it on DVD and not in the cinema. I've enjoyed watching nevertheless. Definitely, some references to films like "Pulp Fiction" or "Usual Suspects" were used. But the main thing taken from "PF" is the unchronological proceedings. And for me, this is not a reason to criticise a movie, unless it's 'stolen' even more ideas. No doubt: "PF" is - a lot - better than "L#S", but in my view, Josh Hartnett has shot his best film next to "Black Hawk Down"
