Lucky Number Slevin **** (2006, Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci) – Classic Movie Review 647

Mr Goodkat: ‘Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest in Monte Carlo and came in third. That’s a story.’

Just the right, cultish cast is assembled for the tough and brilliant 2006 thriller Lucky Number Slevin from Scottish director Paul McGuigan, best known for Gangster No 1 (2000), Wicker Park (2004) and Push (2009).

Josh Hartnett is ideal as the hapless – but it turns out mighty resourceful – innocent Slevin Kelevra, who is propelled by a case of mistaken identity into the middle of a war waged by two rival Manhattan crime bosses. In inspired casting, they are played by Sir Ben Kingsley as The Rabbi and Morgan Freeman as The Boss.

Meanwhile, Slevin is under constant surveillance by Stanley Tucci’s relentless Detective Brikowski, as well as Bruce Willis’s infamous assassin Mr Goodkat. It all starts in an airport waiting room, as a man in a wheelchair tells a stranger a shaggy dog story about a fixed horse race in 1979 that resulted in a family’s deaths.

Unfortunately for him, the unlucky, recently mugged Slevin is staying in a friend’s Manhattan apartment, where two thugs turn up and force him to see a Mob boss (Freeman) whose son has just been killed, along with two bookies.

The Boss orders Slevin to kill the son of his Mob rival, The Rabbi (Kingsley), in retaliation. The son is Yitzchok (Michael Rubenfeld), called Yitzchok the Fairy. This gives rise to this dialogue. Maybe we should be offended, or maybe just amused.

The Boss: ‘Yitzchok the Fairy’. Slevin: ‘Why do they call him The Fairy?’ The Boss: ‘Because he’s a fairy.’ Slevin: ‘What, he’s got wings, he flies, he sprinkles magic dust all over the place? The Boss: [annoyed] ‘He’s homosexual.’

If Slevin is going to survive this ordeal, he will need a plan to get the villains before they get him. Lucy Liu has a key role as Lindsey, his neighbour, friend and love interest, and, it turns out, she’s a coroner.

Copious talent is splashed all over this exciting, ingenious, imaginative, satisfying and all round very fine thriller. Lucky Number Slevin is perfectly scripted by Jason Smilovic, whose only screenplay it was for a decade up to 2016 and War Dogs.

Josh Hartnett lived with Jason Smilovic and his girlfriend in New York City while Smilovic wrote the script, having Slevin wear only a towel much the time because that’s what Hartnett did and he thought it added vulnerability to Slevin.

After a short-lived US TV series Cracker: Mind Over Murder (1997), Hartnett broke into the big-screen movie business with his starring role in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), then made The Faculty, The Virgin Suicides, Town & Country and Pearl Harbor.

He followed Lucky Number Slevin with The Black Dahlia and 30 Days of Night.

Paul McGuigan is also known for The Acid House (1998), Victor Frankenstein (2015) and Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (2017).

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