by MARK SLUTSKY

If you’re going to make a movie about a character who’s incredibly unlucky and constantly finding himself in terrifying and troublesome situations, and who, every hour, seems to be descending deeper and deeper into danger, well, you might be wise not to have that character walk around the whole time with a big old grin on his face. Kind of cuts the tension. But hey, that’s just one of the many things wrong—terribly wrong—with Lucky Number Slevin, a new film from director Paul McGuigan (Gangster Number 1).

The smirky character in question is Slevin himself (Josh Hartnett), a kid who, after a very bad day (loses job, girlfriend, apartment), goes and visits his buddy in New York. His buddy, however, isn’t home, and Hartnett gets mistaken for his no-account friend—gambling debts and all. This brings him into the orbit of two warring gangsters, “The Boss” and “The Rabbi,” played respectively by Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley in career-worst performances.

See, the two were once partners, but after some double-crossing they now live by an uneasy truce, and for safety’s sake neither of them have left their penthouse apartments in 20 years—penthouse apartments that just happen to face each other across the street so they can presumably glower at each other all day. Freeman recruits Hartnett to kill Kingsley’s son, professional assassin Bruce Willis is somehow brought in, Stanley Tucci is hanging around, oh, and Hartnett also falls for wacky coroner Lucy Liu.

It’s a handful and it sounds complicated. But to be honest you can see this movie’s “surprise” twist coming a mile away. Which makes it all the worse that the flick spends an entire 30 minutes lovingly explaining the plot’s all-too-obvious machinations at movie’s end. Come on, this sort of thing shouldn’t ever take more than five minutes.

Just as tiring is the movie’s style. You can tell they’re going for a stylized ’70s-retro feel with the production design, but this is a film that mistakes wallpaper for atmosphere, and its star-studded gangster mediocrity is more ’90s than anything else.

Lucky Number Slevin opens Friday, April 7

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