Lucky Number Slevin

Movie
German title	Lucky # Slevin
Original title	Lucky Number Slevin
Country of production	Germany , USA , Canada , United Kingdom
original language	English
Publishing year	2006
length	109 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16
Rod
Director	Paul McGuigan
script	Jason Smilovic
production	Christopher Eberts ; Kia Jam ; Tyler Mitchell ; Anthony Rhulen ; Chris Roberts
music	Joshua Ralph
camera	Peter Sova
cut	Andrew Hulme
occupation
	Josh Hartnett : Slevin Kelevra; Bruce Willis : Mr. Goodkat ("Smith"); Lucy Liu : Lindsey; Morgan Freeman : The boss; Ben Kingsley : The Rabbi; Corey Stoll : Saul; Rami Posner: The dumb one; Michael Rubenfeld : Yitzchok; Peter Outerbridge : Dumbrowski; Stanley Tucci : Brikowski; Mykelti Williamson : Sloe; Dorian Missick : Elvis; Daniel Kash : First bodyguard ; Dmitry Chepovetsky : Second bodyguard; Danny Aiello : Roth; Oliver Davis : Henry; Robert Forster : Murphy; Sam Jaeger : Nick Fisher; Scott Gibson : Max;

Lucky Number Slevin is a British-Canadian- US-American - German thriller by Paul McGuigan from the year 2006 . The film is also known by the names Lucky Number S7evin and Lucky # Slevin .

action

The film begins with the murder of two bookmakers by strangers. The perpetrators take their books. Then it is shown how an unknown man tells a story to an apparently complete stranger: He tells him how in 1979 the mafia manipulated a race with the horse Lucky Number Slevin through a "pharmacist's handicap". A man named Max found out about it by chance through a chain of intermediaries and wanted to make a profit. However, the doped horse fell during the race and Max not only lost the bet, but also a lot of money that he could not repay. The masterminds behind the manipulation had Max, his family and his bookmaker killed in order to set a sign that it would be better to stay out of "their" bets.

In the presence of the film, the protagonist Slevin Kelevra gets to know Lindsey, whose neighbor Nick Fisher has disappeared and whose disappearance she wants to investigate in the style of a hobby detective. At this point, Slevin was living in the apartment of his friend Nick, whom he said he wanted to meet in the apartment. Shortly afterwards, Slevin is kidnapped by gangsters and taken to the boss , the head of a mafia organization. He mistakenly thinks Slevin is Nick Fisher and wants to collect the outstanding debt of $ 96,000 from him. The boss suggests forgetting him if Slevin kills the rabbi's son . The boss acts this way because he thinks he is under pressure. He thinks the rabbi had his son killed to weaken the boss's position. A little later, when Slevin is back in Nick's apartment, he is kidnapped again, this time by two Jews who take him to the rabbi , who lives in a penthouse opposite his enemy . The rabbi initially confuses Slevin with Nick Fisher - who also owes the rabbi money, this time $ 33,000 - but quickly realizes that Slevin cannot be the real Fisher. The rabbi still demands that he repay the money so that an agreement with the killer Goodkat is not endangered.

After the viewer has been groping in the dark for a long time, it turns out that the beginning of the film showed how Kelevra's parents were killed when he was still a child. The murder was carried out jointly by the boss and the rabbi , who were friends and business partners at the time. The killer Goodkat was specially hired to kill the little boy because nobody else wanted to do that. But he secretly spared the boy and from then on looked after him. By using the name Slevin Kelevra, Slevin refers on the one hand to the horse Lucky Number Slevin , which sealed the fate of his parents, and on the other hand to the involvement of the Mafia and the killer Goodkat . Kelevra is Hebrew (actually kelev ra ) and means bad dog . Kelevra and Goodkat jointly planned to eliminate the rabbi and the boss in revenge for the killing of Slevin's family. Because this proved extremely difficult, they embarked on a red herring that Goodkat calls the Kansas City Shuffle . First of all, they looked for a person who owed heavily to both bosses. To get the debt overviews , Slevin and Goodkat killed a bookmaker each from the boss and the rabbi at the very beginning of the film . So they found the double debtor they were looking for : Nick Fisher, whose killing by Goodkat can be seen at the beginning of the film. Then the son was killed by the boss by Slevin so that the father would hire Goodkat again and this time entrust him with the killing of the alleged murderer. Goodkat pretended that the rabbi had the boss's son killed. So the boss wanted to have the rabbi's son killed in revenge. In order not to have to pay another killer, the boss, at Goodkat's suggestion, had Slevin, whom he believes was his debtor Nick Fisher, come to and forced him to kill the rabbi's son in return.

Goodkat and Slevin work together to kill the rabbi's son . Eventually Slevin returns to the rabbi - ostensibly to bring him the money owed. He knocks him unconscious and then takes him to the boss' penthouse . This has since been rendered harmless by Goodkat . The mafia bosses are then informed in the boss's house of the reason for their imminent death and killed in the same way as Slevin's father was killed: They each suffocate with a plastic bag that is put over their heads and taped to their necks.

In addition, it turns out that the chief policeman, who heads most of the film about the investigation in the direction of the mafia bosses and wonders who Slevin actually is, is himself the killer who shot Slevin's mother. Logically, he too is shot at the end by Slevin, who was hiding in the back seat of the policeman's car, in order to complete his revenge.

Goodkat sets out to kill Lindsey, too, because she had photographed him as "Smith", which endangers his work as an unrecognized professional killer. This is done with the consent of Slevin, although Slevin entered into a relationship with her during the "investigation" and the preparations to kill the rabbi's son . Slevin and Lindsey therefore only fake their deaths with a protective vest and dummy blood bags under their clothing, as Goodkat always fires two precise shots in the chest. As it turns out, Goodkat knew about this ruse and therefore surprises the two of them in the same room in which he initially killed Nick Fischer by breaking his neck. But he now accepts the fact that the two have entered into a relationship.

background

The film was shot in New York and Canada . The racecourse scenes were filmed on the Aquaduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens , New York . The film grossed $ 22.5 million in US cinemas and £ 4.4 million in the UK . Worldwide played Lucky Number Slevin US dollars 56.3 million, with a budget of 27 million US dollars.

Since there was no distributor, the film did not make it into the cinemas in Germany. That is why it was released on January 11, 2007 as a rental DVD and as a purchase DVD on January 25, 2007.

Others

The name of the protagonist is alluded to several times in the film; in one of their conversations the boss calls Slevin a mouse and himself a cat. This is an indication of the peculiarity of a Kansas City Shuffles , as the evil dog hides behind the mouse Slevin. The film also alludes to the original contrast between Goodkat (good cat) and Kelevra (bad dog).

Reviews

Michael Wilmington compared the film in the Chicago Tribune to Quentin Tarantino's films and praised the cast.

“The plot itself is also absolutely unpredictable and yet incredibly logical and coherent. Another feature of a film that you don't see too often. Ultimately, there is also a really nice romance in the film and so I would say that this gangster romance with many twists is the right one for almost every audience. "

- Filmewelt.net

“Entertaining gangster film that juggles with common genre ingredients, gains an independent profile and has a surprising ending. Excellent cast, carefully staged. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

The film was nominated for the Directors Guild of Canada Award in 2006. Paul McGuigan won the 2007 Internazionale di Milano Prize in the Best Film category , as well as the Festival Audience Award. Josh Hartnett also received awards for best actor and Andrew Hulme for editing.

The film was nominated for the Golden Reel Award in 2007 for sound editing in two categories .