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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 53 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    For the most part, though, it works as a clever thriller that entertains through purposeful misdirection. Read full review

  • 75
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    This pop-culture-infused mistaken-identity thriller ultimately grabs hold and beguiles, though its convoluted plot takes a while to get going. Read full review

  • 70
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    The film is stylish as hell with sharp dialogue, a tongue-in-cheek plot and visual and editing razzle-dazzle. Read full review

  • 67
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    A thriller that holds less interest - and less water - the more it reveals about what's actually going on. Read full review

  • 60
    Variety | Justin Chang

    Thoroughly -- and sometimes justifiably -- infatuated with its own cleverness, this mistaken-identity thriller delights in narrative complication and Tarantino-esque self-awareness. Read full review

  • 60
    The New York Times | Stephen Holden

    From its sly, amused performances to its surreal comic book gloss to its artfully nervous camerawork, Lucky Number Slevin sustains the blas tone and look of a smart-aleck thriller that buries its heart under layers of attitude. Read full review

  • 50
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    If "Pulp Fiction" impregnated "The Usual Suspects," the spawn would look a lot like Lucky Number Slevin. Great genes, but you keep wondering when the kid is going to grow up and find an identity of his own. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    There's just too much death, it comes too quickly, it has no moral import, it becomes ultimately meaningless. It's not that hyper-violent movies are axiomatically a bad thing, it's just that this particular example is so laden with shootings that it becomes somehow tedious. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Kevin Crust

    Lucky Number Slevin is an attempted cinematic sleight-of-hand that has its moments, but is finally just plain annoying, wearing its influences too broadly on its sleeve. Read full review

  • 50
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Too clever by half. It's the worst kind of con: It tells us it's a con, so we don't even have the consolation of being led down the garden path. Read full review

View more reviews for Lucky Number Slevin on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Smug and violent caper movie isn't for kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that the movie includes multiple violent scenes (shooting, neck- and nose-breaking, fighting, knifing, smothering in plastic wrap), as well as one flashback where a young boy sees his father killed by a hitman (the shooting is off-screen, the boy's stunned and frightened reaction is visible). Most characters are professional thugs and killers, gamblers, and con-men. One female character works in a morgue, where a burned corpse is visible (close-up of the grisly arm). Characters curse frequently, drink occasionally, and a few scenes display or insinuate sexual activity. None of the characters provides an admirable role model; some are cleverer than others.
  • Families can talk about the strong bond between the father-figure and his protégé. You might also discuss the risks of gambling (on anything), and the suggestion here that a "sure thing" (like the central, meticulously detailed revenge plot) might be possible. What do you make of Schlomo's assertion that "People are never happy with what they have, they want what they had or what somebody else has"?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Heroes are assassins, gamblers, and cheats who outsmart mob bosses.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Includes frequent killings and beatings (knifings, shootings, nose-breaking, neck-breaking, punching faces and stomachs, poisoning); opens with a man shot in his car (windows break, blood splatters); a horse takes a bad spill on a track; a woman is shot offscreen (you see blood splatter); a boy witnesses his dad's execution (you see blood on car windshield); a man is shot from a rooftop; explosion; dead, bloody bodies; Lindsey works in a morgue and so deals with dead bodies (one is grotesquely burned).
  • sex false3 Sex: Two sex scenes; Lindsey accidentally sees Slevin's penis (though we don't -- her reaction is our focus); Slevin and Lindsey chatting, post-sex, in bed; flashback shows two gay men meeting secretly; verbal references to "hand job," "fine ass," "t--s."
  • language false5 Language: Frequent use of the f-word (30 or so instances); some sexual slang; several uses of s-word, "ass," and "hell," one "damn," pejoratives for gay men ("fairy").
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Characters drink in social situations.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

2.0

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… Tarantino-wannabe-ishness. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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