Paul McGuigan
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Connections, in both directions
The Cary Grant North by Northwest reference is part and parcel of the script’s glib post-modern approach where everyone is sufficiently pop-culture savvy to relate the events of the film to other films.
Like Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (which is directly referenced by one character), Josh Hartnett is a man who is repeatedly mistaken for somebody else.
(In fact, North by Northwest is explicitly referenced.)
It aspires to be in the same company as Hitchcock's classic "North By Northwest," but that's only a pipe dream.
The script brings up references to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and James Bond films, and even the casting of Willis and Liu, who have been strongly associated with previous Tarantino films, contributes to this film’s active overstatement of the company it wishes to keep.
It's a twisty-turny tale, ever so slightly reminiscent of "North by Northwest" (a connection that this film is quick to point out) about a seemingly regular guy (Josh Hartnett) who appears to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Directed by Bryan Singer
influenced Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Plot Characters
Taking a cue from The Usual Suspects, the film anchors its abundant ingenuity in crisp, somewhat abstracted relationships, that is to say, impressive performances by respected actors (one payoff involves Schlomo and the Boss in the same room, at long last, such that Gandhi and Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris might throw down verbally).
The reasons for his "What, me worry?" quips and sheepish grins become apparent as the film shifts from glib-noir black comedy to Shakespearean vengeance in the key of "The Usual Suspects."
I had problems with " The Usual Suspects ," but at least I didn't see the last scene coming.
It's not quite "The Usual Suspects" or "House of Games," but then what is?
Hartnett, whose charisma is firmly established with this film, plays Slevin Kelevra, one of those names that will stay with you the way The Usual Suspects' Keyser Soze did a decade ago.
Lucky Number Slevin tries to be more than it is, something between The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction.
The film’s insubstantiality and misjudged tone recall Lucky Number Slevin , another ultra-violent black comedy that pulled punches and failed to live up to its potential.
It bears much more resemblance to Takashi Miike’s First Love , Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire and the similarly smug but still quite good Lucky Number Slevin .
The film is idiotically entertaining from start to finish, set-designed to die for (in a good way) and quotably written by first-time director Drew Pearce (probably inspired after watching Lucky Number Slevin on a slow night).
Fascinating cinematography, riveting performances and memorable background music (by Cliff Martinez/ Wicker Park ) combine to elevate the movie above many other heist-gone-wrong flicks.
More significantly, while most movies in this genre play as tragedythink of Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects and other films in which the protagonist who tries to accomplish something good is undone by some sort of personal flawthis one plays, for the most part, as comedy, and not just because it has funny dialogue and amusing images.
It's not quite "The Usual Suspects" or "House of Games," but then what is?
It takes its editing rhythms from the clever Guy Ritchie of "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" fame (and not "Swept Away," with wifey Madonna, infamy).
He's part of the gang of new British cutthroats that includes Guy Ritchie (''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels") and Matthew Vaughn (''Layer Cake"), filmmakers who deliver the old ultra-violence with Cool Britannia flair.
This is as good an action/crime film as the recent import Layer Cake which went virtually undetected by U.S. audiences.
Right here, the shoddy screenwriting becomes apparent, as Danny identifies this guy, who Europol has been investigating for years, as Baron François Toulour (Vincent Cassel, "The Reckoning"), completely out of the blue.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Visuals Plot
At first, the movie seems to be some sort of distant relation to "Pulp Fiction" or possibly "Sin City" -- the presence of Bruce Willis as one of the key players in "Slevin" underscores the connection -- but eventually Smilovic's real source of inspiration emerges.
From a directorial standpoint, Paul McGuigan was evidently inspired by Tarantino, and some of the Pulp Fiction filmmaker's favorite actors - Bruce Willis, Robert Foerster, Lucy Liu - make appearances.
The movie borrows from that 1995 film, as well as from 1994's Pulp Fiction.
The dialogue, which already sticks like peanut butter to the cast's maws, is peppered with slurs, "fairy" this and "darkies" that -- more lost-in-translation QT. "You're a conundrum, you," Freeman says to Harnett, but Lucky Number Slevin should be easy to decipher for audiences alert enough to notice that the hideous wallpaper designs in the characters' rooms haven't changed much since the 1979 prologue, just as hideous Pulp Fiction clones haven't changed much since 1994.
Now he's the lead in Lucky Number Slevin, evidence that Weinstein Co. honchos Bob and Harvey are chasing some of the old Pulp Fiction magic—and failing not only miserably, but kind of disgustingly.
What was novel and clever in that film and in “Pulp Fiction” is tedious and exhausting in the hands of most people, including first-time screenwriter Jason Smilovic.
But much like the God-awful Jumper , Push has an interesting premise that it just can’t translate into a great movie.
Certainly, that's an infinitely superior mutant movie, yet don't think Push's plagiarism ends there: It's almost a given that the pitch meeting found the film's creators, uh, pushing the picture by declaring, "It's X-Men meets Jumper meets Heroes meets The Matrix!" Had they any sense of integrity, they would have ended the sentence by adding, "Only not very exciting or enjoyable!"
I thought Hayden Christensen in last year’s “Jumper” would be as bland a mutant as the screen would ever give us, but that was before I saw Chris Evans in “Push.”
“Push” belongs in that class of films I call “Not Quite X-Men,” movies that play out like origin stories to comic book characters and like the previous title “Jumper,” McGuigan’s “Push” aspires to be nothing more than a super powered “Fugitive” that uses all settings and space to make the best of a pretty thin plot and a pretty thin budget that takes the story to great levels of action and thrills.
While watching the loathsome “Push” I couldn’t help but wonder why people were so hard on last year’s satisfying actioner, “Jumper.”
The opening core-dump is symptomatic of Push's diffuse focus: McGuigan seems to want to merge arthouse fare with breathless action movies like Jumper and the Night Watch series.
Tarantino's breakthrough reimagining of the crime movie has inspired countless would-be successors, some rather good (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Go), others borderline unwatchable (A Life Less Ordinary, Lucky Number Slevin, Smokin' Aces).
Yet like other cracks at jerry-rigging Welsh’s foul-mouthed, thickly accented, stream-of- consciousness prose for the screen (1998’s The Acid House, 2011’s Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy), Filth feels like a mawkish, embarrassing imitation; a blundering attempt to rebottle lightning.
However, Danny Boyle’s modern classic doth bestride the world of the Irvine Welsh adaptation like a colossus, its shadow seemingly impossible to escape from, so there is a glass-half-full way of looking at it: “Filth” is undoubtedly better than also-rans “The Acid House” and “Ecstasy.”
Quizá, la versión cinematográfica pudo haber sido más sucia y pútrida, pero el realizador británico, Jon S. Baird (Cass, 2008), es capaz de recuperar el caos emocional, la atmósfera de libertinaje y el atrevido tono de humor negro presentes en la fuente original para que el filme, afortunadamente, se erija en un tono más cercano a la odisea de los adictos a la heroína de Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996) que a las otras traducciones fílmicas menos acertadas como The Acid House (Paul McGuigan, 1998) y Ecstasy (Rob Heydon, 2011).
Too much of the script hinges on the payoff, which seems highly influenced by films like Usual Suspects and Lucky Number Slevin .
An elaborate piece of narrative hocus-pocus, this mystery thriller benefits from a strong cast (Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci) and some of the best 70s-kitsch set decoration since Boogie Nights.