A big bet gone wrong; A man brutally killed; a boy secretly spared; an average guy and a an average girl thrown together in New York City apartment.
What could commonly link these together? That's a big part of the fun that writer Jason Smilovic and director Paul McGuigan have in this unrepentantly bloody yet strangely high-spirited and even compassionate thriller that combines the usual cliches of revenge, murder, love and family in some very un-cliched ways.
Wrapped in a towel, Slevin (the wonderfully enigmatic Josh Hartnett, who has since faded into obscurity) encounters Lindsey (Lucy Liu), a chatty coroner whose eager to hear his story, as twisted as it is and later becomes. Slevin, it appears, is caught up in a bitter rivalry between two local crime bosses - the irascible Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and the worldly yet unforgiving - and laconically named - Boss. Throw in a disproportionately interested cop (the always excellent Stanley Tucci) and the shadowy yet sarcastic assassin hired by each boss to take out the other, and all is set for som hard-charging fun as the disparate threads are unravelled and re-tied.
Slevin is essentially a straight forward, neat black comedy of errors(mistaken identity for one). The dialogue is at times razor sharp and the action is well shot. The body count climbs steadily as the movie progresses at a cracking pace that never becomes dull. Slevin is thematically similar to a few other choice stories, but like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Slevin should be enjoyed more for the ride and the audience should try not to guess ahead of the plot and let it unfold naturally.
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