Lucky Number Slevin is an intricate puzzle of a movie that is quite often too complex (and self conscious) for it's own good. It works awfully hard to fool the audience, and sometimes this proves to be distracting. Thankfully though, Lucky Number Slevin is very entertaining, thanks mostly to a diverse and effective cast that appear to be having an enormously fun time.

In Lucky Number Slevin, Josh Hartnett is Slevin, a young man who's about to have one unlucky day. After using a buddy's apartment to clean himself up after a rough morning, he is quickly caught up in an enormously complex case of mistaken identity - one that brings him face to face with a couple of feuding mob bosses (wonderfully played by veterans Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley), a soft spoken, but extremely deadly assassin (Bruce Willis), and a quirky but cute mortician (a lively Lucy Liu).

Paul McGuigan (who also directed Hartnett in Wicker Park) is clearly inspired by noir thrillers, but the movies Lucky Number Slevin most reminded me of were Bryan Singer's outstanding Usual Suspects and Brian Helgeland's underrated Payback. With a twisty plot structure and numerous characters, this thriller offers up moments that don't appear to make sense at first glance, but by the end of the picture, everything comes together. With the aid of assured cinematography and crisp editing, McGuigan has fashioned a slick and effectively suspenseful number.

Screenwriter Jason Smilovic does a good job keeping the audience guessing, but Lucky Number Slevin still requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Without giving too much away, things ends a little too conveniently pat. There are plot threads in this film that are wrapped up a little too neatly, and the fashion in which a certain character so precisely calculates everything to perfection, left me scratching my head. I had a similar reaction to David Fincher's The Game. Furthermore, Smilovic appears hellbent on spelling everything out for the audience. Sometimes a little ambiguity is good. Still, I like the overall tone of the movie, and I got a big kick out of the little winks at the numerous films that clearly inspired this movie (watch for references to James Bond and North By Northwest).

The usually blasé Hartnett is slightly more animated here than he's been in the past, but it is the stellar supporting cast that really give Lucky Number Slevin it's kick. Freeman and Kingsley are wickedly entertaining as two aging crime bosses who think they know everything. Kingsley in particular has a blast as a Jewish mobster out to protect his gay son. Lucy Liu is a ball of unlimited energy as love interest Lindsey. Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump) is a hoot as a dim-witted henchman. Stanley Tucci is at his manic best as the confident cop whose in constant pursuit of Slevin. Finally, we have Bruce Willis who, despite a role that requires very little emotion, manages to bring a strange sort of sweetness to his deadpan assassin Mr. Goodkat.

Lucky Number Slevin suffers from an overly long running time and it doesn't have the balls to follow through on a potentially gutsy move in the final act, but ultimately, I was entertained. At the very least, it's a major step up for McGuigan whose Wicker Park was a fairly dull tale about obsession. With this effort, the director really allows his expert cast to shine, and the end result is a labored but very entertaining movie that constantly challenges the audience to figure out what might happen next. The Usual Suspects it ain't, but it's fun nevertheless.