the worst title I've seen in a while, with an upside-down 7 for the L in Slevin.
the trailer looks pretty good though. hopefully it can move beyond the Elmore Leonard/Snatch progenitors. It looks like the writer, Jason Smilovic, helped create "Karen Sisco." And the director, Paul McGuigan, helped create the new show "Thief" that looks to be good. the poster feels very Sin City-esque.
Lucky Number Slevin (Paul McGuigan, 2006)
-
milk114
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:38 pm
- Location: Mar Vista, Los Angeles
-
justeleblanc
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:05 pm
- Location: Connecticut
Okay, so I saw this film two weeks ago and wasn't impressed at all and I kind of blame it on the direction (though I haven't seen his other films).
A friend of mine who worked for Karen Sisco Show sent me the script and said it was awesome, and it was pretty enjoyable. But the movie was flawed. The casting was a little bizarre at times, but I was mostly pissed at how seriously it took itself. There's a really superficial love story thrown in that carries such fake emotions and forced redemptions that I wanted to vomit. It's a revenge movie, and in most cases, revenge movies run the risk of being extremely silly if you step back and take a look at how rediculous the characters are. In Slevin, they characters seem to spend 20 years of their life plotting revenge (and only plotting revenge) which can work if the film as a whole doesn't take itself seriously. But mixing the sentimentality and the revenge story killed the film -- and the ending.
Visually, the the direction was cool and colorful but nothing amazing. It kind of falls somewhere between Snatch and Mulholland Drive only without being as much fun. The director came and spoke afterwards and he impressed me as someone who should make decent music videos.
And something else that bothered me about the film (and granted I read the script in 2002) was how they changed the term "slight of hand" (I might have misspelled that) to "The Kansas City Shuffle" to try to make it sound more cool. Kind of lame.
A friend of mine who worked for Karen Sisco Show sent me the script and said it was awesome, and it was pretty enjoyable. But the movie was flawed. The casting was a little bizarre at times, but I was mostly pissed at how seriously it took itself. There's a really superficial love story thrown in that carries such fake emotions and forced redemptions that I wanted to vomit. It's a revenge movie, and in most cases, revenge movies run the risk of being extremely silly if you step back and take a look at how rediculous the characters are. In Slevin, they characters seem to spend 20 years of their life plotting revenge (and only plotting revenge) which can work if the film as a whole doesn't take itself seriously. But mixing the sentimentality and the revenge story killed the film -- and the ending.
Visually, the the direction was cool and colorful but nothing amazing. It kind of falls somewhere between Snatch and Mulholland Drive only without being as much fun. The director came and spoke afterwards and he impressed me as someone who should make decent music videos.
And something else that bothered me about the film (and granted I read the script in 2002) was how they changed the term "slight of hand" (I might have misspelled that) to "The Kansas City Shuffle" to try to make it sound more cool. Kind of lame.
-
Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
I saw this last night, and I have to say it was fairly insubstantial. As justeleblanc mentioned, the film is pretty amazing visually for it's pretty for the sake of being pretty. My biggest problem with the movie was its abrupt shift in tone. The first two-thirds of the movie are fairly lighted hearted but the latter third suddenly shifts gears into this remorseless revenge thriller that is just counterintuitive to the rest of the film. It's not like the mystery was hard to figure out - at all - so the shift at the end doesn't make sense. If it had been that unrelenting and coldblooded from the beginning I think it would've been much better, rather than this masquerade about a guy drawn into a situation he has no part of.
Finally, the "witty and clever" dialogue was eye-rolling at times - particularly the back and forth between Liu and Hartnett. It felt like it was written by a guy who read one noir novel, one Hugh Grant script and threw the two of them together to create a "romance".
Not a terrible movie, but a lazy genre exercise more interested in looking good than being convincing.
Finally, the "witty and clever" dialogue was eye-rolling at times - particularly the back and forth between Liu and Hartnett. It felt like it was written by a guy who read one noir novel, one Hugh Grant script and threw the two of them together to create a "romance".
Not a terrible movie, but a lazy genre exercise more interested in looking good than being convincing.