Lucky Number Slevin

While staying at an absent friend’s apartment, a young man (Josh Hartnett) finds himself mistaken for his friend, who owes money to a crime lord known as the Boss (Morgan Freeman). The mix-up lands our hero in the middle of a war between the Boss and a rival gangster, the Rabbi (Ben Kingsley); meanwhile, the wild card is a shadowy hit man (Bruce Willis) who seems to be playing both sides of the line for his own reasons. Jason Smilovic’s script has its tantalizing twists, and though none of them are exactly surprising, they’re satisfying in an ah-I-had-a-hunch sort of way. Hartnett is endearingly befuddled, caught between two menacing old pros; Willis is steely and scary, and Lucy Liu adds impish spice as the neighbor across the hall. Paul McGuigan directs with the skill of a light-fingered juggler.