So here it is. I didn't think they'd have the guts, frankly. It's one thing to turn up at Sundance with a movie called Lucky Number Slevin, banking upon the forbearance of a gaggle of weary, oxygen-deprived journalists. Given three months between world premiere and commercial release, though, you'd think sanity might eventually have prevailed. Truth is, none of the numerous hairpin plot twists animating this stylishly hollow thriller is even one-tenth as entertaining as a little twisted speculation about the brainstorming session that might have produced that title. "I think I've got it, boss: The Lanced Boil." "Hmm. Not bad, but I see our target audience merely wincing, not actively recoiling." "How's about ... Mumblecrumblejumbletumble?" "C'mon. Do we really want to settle for stupid? Think noxious, people."
On the plus side, the film itself can't possibly live down to the expectations of idiocy engendered by its titular "pun." Slevin, it turns out, is the name of our hero, an ostensibly regular guy played with disarming nonchalance (given his predicament) by Josh Hartnett. Arriving in New York City following a nasty breakup, Slevin gets mugged while he's practically still on the airport tarmac; shortly thereafter, this hapless (and newly walletless) innocent winds up being mistaken for the deadbeat pal in whose apartment he's crashing, targeted by not one but two ice-cold criminal kingpins—archrivals, no less, who've spent the last two decades malevolently eyeing each other from matching penthouse suites situated just a few blocks apart. Hauled before "The Boss" (Morgan Freeman) wearing nothing but slippers and a floral-print towel wrapped around his waist—one of the film's wittier touches—Slevin learns that he, which is to say his buddy, is on the books for nearly a hundred grand; The Boss might be willing to forgive that debt, however, if Slevin will kill the son of "The Rabbi" (Ben Kingsley). Needless to say, The Rabbi, to whom Slevin's mysterious and increasingly dodgy-seeming "friend" also owes a bundle, proposes an alternative. And both deals, it seems, are being orchestrated behind the scenes by an enigmatic hit man called Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis), whose perpetual dry smirk may well be even less flattering than his wispy toupee.
"Ever hear of the Kansas City Shuffle?" asks Mr. Goodkat of one victim. By this, it transpires, he means an elaborate, neo-Mametian feint: "They look left, you go right," or some jukey maneuver to that effect. Lucky Number Slevin's inevitable rug-pulling, however, is almost painfully transparent, unless you believe that professional assassins really do distract their targets via hecka-long, convoluted anecdotes that will surely have no bearing on subsequent events. To forestall such questions, and distract us from the film's core emptiness, director Paul McGuigan (Gangster No. 1, Wicker Park) and his crew very nearly art-direct everything into the dirt: The wallpaper in ordinary apartment buildings is a catalogue of optical illusions, and one fleeting overhead shot of a parking lot features an array of vehicles so expertly color-coordinated they could be photoshopped into a Kelly-Moore spread. In a Wong Kar-wai movie, say, such lavish design will mirror or counterpoint emotion; here, in the absence of any emotion whatsoever, it comes across as affectation at best, desperation at worst.
Still, for some viewers, you can't go completely awry with this kind of superficially engaging nonsense, so long as the plot is reasonably clever and the cast seems to be having a good time. I must confess to being among the forgiving. Lucky Number Slevin can't boast of a single interesting or novel idea, but it did hold my attention throughout, thanks to brisk pacing, a smattering of sharp one-liners (first-time screenwriter Jason Smilovic lifts shamelessly from Tarantino, but with more flair than most), and a twinkling ensemble more than happy to roll with the script's churning preposterousness. (The exception: Willis, tediously grave.) If nothing else, we owe this movie a sincere debt of gratitude for finally freeing Lucy Liu from the dragon-lady cell in which she's been imprisoned since Ally McBeal. Even as one of Charlie's Angels, Liu wound up relegated to the role of impassive straight woman, getting way less than her fair third of the fun and folly; Tarantino gave her a terrific part in Kill Bill, but even that was predicated on the gulf between her size and her demeanor. Here, as Slevin's across-the-hall neighbor, she's allowed to be warm, flirtatious, even fetching. She arguably out-Drews Drew.