Have you ever heard of a Kansas City Shuffle? It’s a kind of confidence game where your target looks left and you go right, and it’s the central design of the wildly entertaining 2006 neo-noir dark comedy “Lucky Number Slevin.” While critics were pretty tough on the movie and many felt like it was just another Tarantino knock-off, audiences have found a lot to love in this offbeat mid-2000s gem. Sure, it didn’t exactly knock it out of the park at the box office, earning only $56 million worldwide, but home video and streaming helped “Lucky Number Slevin” reach new viewers who appreciate the twists, pitch black humor, and gorgeous aesthetics.
/Film’s own Ben Pearson ranks “Lucky Number Slevin” among his favorite films of all time, pointing out phenomenal performances by Josh Hartnett, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman, and Ben Kingsley, plus the incredible production design, with some of the best uses of wallpaper in a movie this side of “Garden State.” Not only that, but it has Bruce Willis playing the perfect kind of detached cool guy, and he gets to deliver lines about Charlie Chaplin losing a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. What’s not to love?
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Lucky Number Slevin is a stylish dark comedy with killer performances
Josh Hartnett as Slevin Kelevra and Lucy Liu as Lindsey sitting by the phone and staring at it in Lucky Number Slevin – MGM
Long before he was offering up the daddy of all shirtless thirst trap scenes in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap,” Josh Hartnett played a seemingly down-on-his-luck tourist named Slevin Kelevra who gets mugged and then mistaken for the friend he’s visiting (who also happens to be missing). That friend apparently owes a whole bunch of money to mob boss The Boss (Morgan Freeman), and so Slevin is tasked with either paying him back or killing the son of his rival, The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). Along the way, he meets and falls for his friend’s neighbor, Lindsey (Lucy Liu), who appoints herself as an amateur detective and decides to help Slevin. Liu and Hartnett have exquisite onscreen chemistry both comedically and romantically, and are giving career-best performances.
When you add in the fact that Kingsley absolutely chomps the scenery and Freeman devours it alongside him, there’s more than enough great acting and visual panache to make “Lucky Number Slevin” feel like something more than the average “Pulp Fiction” wannabe. Really, the only thing holding it back from being an all-timer is some attempts at edgy dialogue that haven’t aged all that well, with some slurs that were (wrongly) found more socially acceptable circa 2006. Then again, the only people using said slurs actively are horrible criminals, so it could be a lot worse.
Lucky Number Slevin is a fun time at the movies
Ben Kingsley as The Rabbi and Morgan Freeman as The Boss tied to chairs back to back and looking terrified in Lucky Number Slevin – MGM
“Lucky Number Slevin” didn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to crime cinema, but it really didn’t need to. It’s a sharp and stylish movie that feels like screenwriter Jason Smilovic and director Paul McGuigan really had a vision for, and it’s honestly kind of nice to watch something never intended for sequelization. There’s something about a neat and tidy two hours of entertainment at the cinema that feels almost antiquated now, when almost everything is tied to a franchise or is a three-and-a-half-hour epic from a beloved auteur, and “Lucky Number Slevin” was that kind of uncomplicated good time at the movies. And while he’s not in it a tremendous amount, it’s one of the last great Bruce Willis performances, along with Rian Johnson’s 2012 sci-fi bummer “Looper.”
If you want to check out a movie that feels like a time capsule of its era’s filmmaking with some peak performances, witty writing, and serious sex appeal a’la Harnett and Lawless, look no further than “Lucky Number Slevin.”
Just watch out for that Kansas City Shuffle.
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