 Box office analysts don't expect Lucky Number Slevin to get lucky this weekend and neither do the critics. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Tribune indicates that critics will have difficulty getting a handle on it. "Lucky Number Slevin," he writes, "is 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. The rug of reality is jerked out from under us in the opening scenes, and before long the floor is being dismantled. Crouched in the dark, I am resentful. Since the plot is irrelevant and the dialogue too mannered to be taken seriously, all I'm left with are the performances and the production design." Similarly, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls the movie, "Too clever for its own good." Adds Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times: "It's the type of movie where nothing is as it appears, and even when it's all sorted out it's completely unsatisfying." Some critics don't bother to mention its cleverness before slamming it. Writes Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "This is the sort of high-octane slop that sticks to the wall long enough for a decent opening before dismal word-of-mouth gets around and the picture slides into video oblivion." |
