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Lucky Number Slevin
The Weinstein Company


8.2

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 86 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Jason Smilovic
DIRECTED BY:	Paul McGuigan
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 12, 2006 Theatrical: April 7, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	109 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The talk is witty, the twists are ingenious, the look and the mood are drop-dead.

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.

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.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Neva Chonin

For the most part, though, it works as a clever thriller that entertains through purposeful misdirection.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A thriller that holds less interest - and less water - the more it reveals about what's actually going on.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

They almost got it really right with Lucky Number Slevin, but they also almost got it horribly wrong.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The most original thing about Lucky Number Slevin is that it lets Lucy Liu play a screwball heroine.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

With its diabolical ending, this is the movie equivalent of a crossword puzzle: fun, clever, and disposable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Features lots of cool dialogue but doesn't provide much of a movie in which to showcase it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Overwritten, over-designed, and too clever by 200 percent, the film does offer the pleasure of actors enjoying themselves.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

With its wiry twists and turns, ends up buckling under the weight of its own cleverness.

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.

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.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Another drearily sadistic and pointless crime thriller.

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?

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.

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"

Lucky Number Slevin The Weinstein Company

Lucky Number Slevin
The Weinstein Company