Lucky Number Slevin

Paul McGuigan’s film gives away its method in the opening scene. At a bus terminal, Goodkat, played by Bruce Willis, tells a young man about a family killed over a fixed horse race, then describes the Kansas City Shuffle, a misleading double bluff, and kills him. The audience watches holding the instructions; someone trying to solve the twist and someone enjoying the method executed are watching two different films. The spaces do the same work. Production designer Francois Seguin gives Nick and Lindsey the same floral seventies wallpaper and sets the flashback flat apart in stark black and white, while the penthouses of the Boss and the Rabbi face each other across the street in geometric patterns and an orange and yellow palette. Most of the time the pattern, not the dialogue, tells you which period a clue belongs to. The story is set in New York but was shot largely in Montreal. Distribution rights went to The Weinstein Company for under 10 million dollars after the wrap, and MGM handled the release; in Australia it played as The Wrong Man. A good fit if you like clues carried by decor rather than dialogue, with wallpaper marking the chronology. Not for anyone who wants a consistent tone; witty two handers and sudden executions sit side by side in one scene.