SIR Ben Kingsley is the fucking man. Can’t find an Indian actor to do a good enough job of playing Gandhi? Not a problem, just give SIR Ben Kingsley a call. Want an unsettlingly realistic portrayal of a psychopathic cockney gangster? SIR Ben Kingsley can deliver the goods. Need somebody to play a New York Rabbi who also happens to be a ruthless crime lord in a marginally above average revenge thriller? SIR Ben Fucking Kingsley will nail that role like a bitch.
The only reason I went to see Lucky Number Slevin is because it had SIR Ben Kingsley in it. Not because I fancy him or anything. No. I like girls me. I tried to take a girl to the film, in fact, but she gave me some excuse about a freeholders meeting, so I went with Mike instead. This is probably for the best – even though Mike is a 20 stone heterosexual Scottish rugby player, I probably stand more chance of scoring with him than the girl in question. Not that I particularly want to score with Mike, I was just illustrating how unlikely it is that I’m going to get anywhere with this particular woman. If I did want to score with a man, I’d probably go for SIR Ben Kingsley, not Mike.
In Lucky Number Slevin, Bruce Willis helps Josh Hartnett exact bloody revenge on the two untouchable crime lords who murdered his parents while he was still a child. Oooh, hark at me: “exact bloody revenge” – don’t I sound just like a proper movie critic and everything. SIR Ben Kingsley plays one of the evil crime barons, and does a fucking good job of it too, while Morgan Freeman plays the other. This is ridiculously stupid. Morgan Freeman cannot play bad-guys, he’s just too damned nice – everybody wishes Morgan Freeman was their granddad. Maybe if he was my granddad I’d be able to dance a bit better. Is that racist? I don’t know.
Josh Hartnett gets to pork Lucy Liu who, instead of her normal bad-ass kung-fu babe role, plays the kind of cute, playful, quirky Asian girlfriend that all men secretly wish they had.* For most of the film she frolics around in a pair of knee length boots and one of those little tartan netball type skirts that we all love so much, then she gets shot but don’t worry, she doesn’t die – if you’re a hot girl you always get a happy ending, that’s just how movies real-life works.
Anyway, if Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie had a baby, this is the kind of film it would make as its first effort. All the right ingredients are there, and it is entertaining enough, but it’s nowhere near as polished as you’d expect from a more accomplished director, it’s like a collection of good ideas and performances that doesn’t quite hang together as well as it should. I only paid £3 to see it, so SIR Ben Kingsley’s performance and Lucy Liu’s “I like it filthy and rough” smile were alone worth the price of the ticket. If you’ve got nothing better to do, go and see it – if you have got something better to do, fuck off you poser. I hate people like you, with your ‘active social life’ – I hope you die.
Score: 7/10
*Ladies, if your other half won’t admit to this, he’s just lying to protect your feelings.
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