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Slevin Kelevra's (John Hartnett) bad day is about to get worse when he decides to stop over Nick Fisher's apartment after
being fired, evicted, cheated and mugged. He is mistaken for Fisher and is picked up by two rival warlords, The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley), upon
the order of specialist assassin The Good Cat (Bruce Willis) who is previously hired by The Boss to avenge his son's death and kill The Rabbi's son.
However, The Good Cat decides to play both sides and offers The Rabbi to kill The Boss for twice the amount he is to be paid. But he tells both warlords to pick up a certain Nick Fisher to settle debts he supposedly owes both of them. Standing in front of the Boss, Slevin is ordered to kill The Rabbi's son within three days in exchange of writing off the $96,000 loan from The Boss. Afterwards he is dragged to the quarters of The Rabbi and is demanded to pay $33,000. What the warlords do not know is that The Good Cat has hidden agenda to play both sides and use Slevin as bait. When the time comes for Slevin to pay off his "supposed" debts the warlords realize how he is connected to the whole set-up.
This movie is clever narration which allows the audience to appreciate and understand if seen from beginning to end.
The film is divided into two parts.
The first is light and funny showing Slevin's misfortune of being mistaken as Fisher and meeting a fast-talking crime-solving hyper coroner Lindsy (Lucy Liu) and how he plans to get out of the mess he got into. The second half dramatically shifts into a somber, chilling cold-blooded murder and revenge. The movie uses flashbacks and deconstructs the scenes by moving to and fro but with narrative, witty script and a brilliant editing. The actors gave a flawless performance with such rich and profound interpretation of the characters. The director should be commended for pulling off non-linear story telling so well to give a not-so-unique plot a fresh treatment.
Revenge is never justified no matter how much pain, violence and injustice the avenger suffered. The movie portrays
revenge as reasonable and violence as a natural consequence for the "righteous" act of getting even.
And because the movie so cleverly shows Slevin as a hapless and naïve victim at first, you will tend to sympathize with him even when you realize what a cold-blooded murderer he has become. Although the film tries to give hearts to the assassins when they deliberately save their targets, it still rationalizes retribution and condones violence. The movie has so much blood, deaths and hatred skillfully disguised with a witty and comic script and justified vendetta that immunes the senses to the violence happening every minute. Young audiences may be easily swayed to think that this is acceptable, therefore it is better that only mature and discerning viewers watch the film. The movie has no moral lesson to impart but can be appreciated for its technical genius.
(Date Reviewed: 31 March 2006)
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