Kickin' Assasin: Review for "Lucky Number Slevin"

Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Lucy Lui, Ben Kingsly, and Morgan Freeman star in Lucky # Slevin, the slick thriller about a horse race and the crime world. Slevin (Josh Hartnett), a young man who stops at a friend's house, is mistaken for that friend, who is Nick Fisher, and is brought to a big crime lord, called the Boss (Morgan Freeman). The Boss wants the supposed Nick Fisher to kill someone, not just for fun, but because his son was murdered by another crime lord, called the Rabbi (Ben Kingsly). So Nick must kill the Rabbi's son, as revenge. To help him, the mysterious assasin, Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis, charismatic as usual), gets the job done. Nick's neighbor, Lucy Lui, is a peppy-girly version, of say Miss Marple and Columbo. She and Willis steal the show. This assasin first tells the taleof a horse race that was fixed and a father lays the bet on a crime boss. He, howeverm is unnable to pay, but has high hope that he will win. He brings his son, a kid named Max, and watches, socked to find that his horse, a Lucky Number Slevin, falls and dies. The crime boss kills his whole family. No one wanted to kill the kid, so he hires "the guy who does jobs no one wants to do." This crime thriller is cunning in a way, manages to keep you guessing, but if you use your head, you can find out the real mystery of this story in about 10 mnutes. The ending is shocking, while somehow managing sympathy for the characters. Tucci plays a cop trying to find out what this Slevin guy is doing. His is a subtle, but important role. There rae many pop culture references, the most important to the story being a cartoon named Shmoo. James Bond and few others are thrown around. Bruce Willis, as the mystery assasin, is excellent, never breaking a sweat, kind of like a bad James Bond who kills for money. This was fun to watch, with the unravling tale of guns, horses, and revenge.

Grade: B+