Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the movie includes multiple violent scenes (shooting, neck- and nose-breaking, fighting, knifing, smothering in plastic wrap), as well as one flashback where a young boy sees his father killed by a hitman (the shooting is off-screen, the boy's stunned and frightened reaction is visible). Most characters are professional thugs and killers, gamblers, and con-men. One female character works in a morgue, where a burned corpse is visible (close-up of the grisly arm). Characters curse frequently, drink occasionally, and a few scenes display or insinuate sexual activity. None of the characters provides an admirable role model; some are cleverer than others.
Families can talk about the strong bond between the father-figure and his protégé. You might also discuss the risks of gambling (on anything), and the suggestion here that a "sure thing" (like the central, meticulously detailed revenge plot) might be possible. What do you make of Schlomo's assertion that "People are never happy with what they have, they want what they had or what somebody else has"?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Proudly clever, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN sets up a range of characters for collisions and takedowns. At the center is Slevin, partly lucky, partly ingenious, mostly Josh Hartnett, with scruffy hair, bared torso, and eyes slightly squinty as he peers at the camera, inviting you to guess what he's thinking.
Slevin first shows up at a train station, slouched in a waiting room chair, pestered by a ratty-looking guy in a wheelchair, one Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis). The guy tells a rambling-seeming story about cheats, killers, and gamblers, with a lesson on what he calls the "Kansas City shuffle," which he describes thusly: "It's when everybody looks right and you go left." Check. Lucky Number Slevin is a caper movie, with tricks and turns and characters who aren't who they seem.
Following some more set-up action, Slevin leaves his unfaithful girlfriend and takes up residence in a friend's New York City apartment. No sooner is he settling in -- shaving, showering, studying the broken nose he received previously -- that he's interrupted by a neighbor, Lindsey (Lucy Liu). "You're not Nick!" she observes astutely. He comes right back with evidence of his legitimacy: "You're not as tall as I thought you'd be," meaning, he was expecting her in some fashion. And she comes back as well, with one of those lines that makes you worry the film is edging toward a tedious smugness, "I'm short for my height." Ba-dum-bump.
Lindsey is one of those charming, chatty girls who show up in caper movies to borrow cups of sugar (literally, her stated mission here), and remind the hero how smart and heterosexual he is. That she happens to be a coroner who has some understanding of how dead bodies happen and doesn't cringe at signs of violence (Slevin's broken nose, for instance), only makes her more appealing in this boys' universe. But Lindsey is only predictably peculiar, citing Columbo as her model for investigation once she determines to find "Nick," now officially missing. She's unbearably cute, but she's stuck somewhere between first and second gear.
Lindsey's stasis echoes that of the boys, though they do have more screen time and appear to cover more literal ground. The caper in which Slevin finds himself immersed has to do with a years-long war between two criminal kingpins, the Boss (Morgan Freeman) and Schlomo (Ben Kingsley), also called the Rabbi. They despise one another, share a history of violence and revenge, and live in stunning penthouse apartments facing one another across the street. Apparently the guy they think he is -- this "Nick" -- owes $96,000 in gambling money, and before you can say "North by Northwest," Slevin is faced with impossible choices. The Boss invites Slevin-as-Nick to erase the debt by killing Schlomo's gay son (retaliation for a previous murder). And everyone is under the mostly misinformed scrutiny of muttery Detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci).
Amid all the boy stuff, Slevin periodically returns to Lindsey, who offers peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pithy assessments of his situation. She gets the artifice, likes the same movies he does, and doesn't need to see all the pieces come together in the big "explanation" scene to feel she has a stake in what's happening. The sign of Slevin's luck and confirmation of his own rightness, Lindsey remains a cipher, drawn to her non-neighbor because that's her function here. Next time, maybe she gets to live in her own movie.
Families who like this movie might also enjoy other violently clever-plot movies, like The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, and Sin City (which features Willis and Hartnett). All of these films are rated R.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentTwo sex scenes; Lindsey accidentally sees Slevin's penis (though we don't -- her reaction is our focus); Slevin and Lindsey chatting, post-sex, in bed; flashback shows two gay men meeting secretly; verbal references to "hand job," "fine ass," "t--s." |
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ViolenceIncludes frequent killings and beatings (knifings, shootings, nose-breaking, neck-breaking, punching faces and stomachs, poisoning); opens with a man shot in his car (windows break, blood splatters); a horse takes a bad spill on a track; a woman is shot offscreen (you see blood splatter); a boy witnesses his dad's execution (you see blood on car windshield); a man is shot from a rooftop; explosion; dead, bloody bodies; Lindsey works in a morgue and so deals with dead bodies (one is grotesquely burned). |
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LanguageFrequent use of the f-word (30 or so instances); some sexual slang; several uses of s-word, "ass," and "hell," one "damn," pejoratives for gay men ("fairy"). |
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Social BehaviorHeroes are assassins, gamblers, and cheats who outsmart mob bosses. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCharacters drink in social situations. |
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