Lucky Number Sleven
starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu, StanleyTucci and Danny Aiello
screenplay by Jason Smilovic
directed by Paul McGuigun
Here is another American film filmed partly in Canada - in Montreal and Toronto. The title is a play on words to indicate that the story focuses around a gambling scenario. It is an intriguing, intricate crime story featuring the 1979 murder for debt of a boy’s family, and his re-emergence over twenty years later to take revenge on the gangsters who left him an orphan. It is well acted and features several great, great actors. Stanley Tucci is possibly my favorite actor today. I have great respect for Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman. (I have noticed over the years that most of my favorite actors are either bald men or black men.) I don’t particularly care for Josh Hartnet, but admittedly this is the finest film I have seen him in yet. Lucy Liu’s character - the romantic sidekick - is more than a little silly, and I don’t think she is even necessary for the story. But there is a perkiness about her that is appealing. I liked this film. It is clever the way The Usual Suspects (starring Kevin Spacey and Gabriel Byrne) is clever in that there is more than one interplaying story unfolding at once. It remains appealing by not going overboard with its own wit. You should like it, too.