Lucky Number Slevin
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: April 7, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
22
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
VarietyJustin 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
Film ThreatJeremy Mathews
Unfortunately, director Paul McGuigan tries to make it all serious at the end, and this isn't the kind of story that should be taken seriously. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
From its sly, amused performances to its surreal comic book gloss to its artfully nervous camerawork, Lucky Number Slevin sustains the blasé tone and look of a smart-aleck thriller that buries its heart under layers of attitude. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
With its diabolical ending, this is the movie equivalent of a crossword puzzle: fun, clever, and disposable. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
It's all superficially enjoyable, right up to the point where the big picture starts coming into focus and it's not worth looking anymore. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's the soulless quality of so many films that value devious plots, smug deception and quirky personality traits over actual story and character. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Features lots of cool dialogue but doesn't provide much of a movie in which to showcase it. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter 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
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Lucky Number Slevin is a bag of nerves. Everything here is too much. The older the actors, the saltier the ham of their performances. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Cursed--but ironically!--with stomach-churning '60s decor, Slevin might round off in Park Chanwook country, but the lingering sense of it is as an amusement park for the actors, who are as infectiously overjoyed for the bouncy badinage as preschoolers on Christmas morning. Like tired parents, our enjoyment is primarily vicarious. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Danny Aiello and Robert Forster also turn up in tiny roles that further serve to distract attention from the real business at hand. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen 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
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Declarative sentences are as scarce as detectable feelings in this stylish, emptyish thriller -- it's Tarantino with the vital juices left out.
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Comes packed with so many plot twists and reversals, there's barely any room left over for a story: The movie is all clever gotchas and hoodwinks, without any substance to go along with them. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A smug, deliberately convoluted mix tape of Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Guy Ritchie and Hitchcock with (mostly) a cast to die for, Lucky Number Slevin is great fun for, say, 20 minutes. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKevin 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
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Overwritten, over-designed, and too clever by 200 percent, the film does offer the pleasure of actors enjoying themselves. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
With its wiry twists and turns, ends up buckling under the weight of its own cleverness. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The proverbial seems awfully pale here. Fans of Q.T. will find it patently derivative. Fans of Elmore will find it, well, El-less. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The pretzeled syntax is fun for a while. But as the holes are filled in, the film stands revealed as just another vacuous revenge picture. It shrinks your perception of what movies can do. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Another drearily sadistic and pointless crime thriller. Read full review
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