Lucky Number Slevin

You may be put off by the weird title of Lucky Number Slevin, but that would be a mistake. By the end of the movie, you will look back and see its greatness, although you will be very confused along the way.
In fact, the first half of the movie is quite strange. The plot doesn't seem to make any sense. Every time you think you understand what is going on, a wrinkle occurs that sets you back. Fear not, one thing I can tell you is it will all make sense in the end.
Bruce Willis gives us the background as the movie opens. He tells a man waiting for a train that all stories need to start somewhere, and this story starts with a horse. The horse is named Lucky Number Slevin, and it is a race horse. It is a race horse that has been given an injection of drugs to artificially boost its performance right before a race. While we are not told what mysterious figures are behind the fix, we do know that they don't want anyone else to know. However, one person tells another who tells another until word reaches a down-on-his luck family man who needs a sure thing. His day goes from bad to a nightmare when Lucky Slevin not only doesn't win, but dies right before the finish line. As he is walking back to his car, he is greeted by the ones who put the fix in in the first place. Not happy that he had been trying to use their secret, they kill him and his family. What a way to start a movie, right?
The film now goes forward about twenty-years. The main character now appears to be stuck in a case of mistaken identity. Two powerful mob bosses believe him to be someone else. He cannot convince them that he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both claim he owes them considerable money and can work off his debt by becoming a hit man. As we watch him struggle to prove who he is, we always wonder what the first part of the movie has to do with the second. What does this fellow have to do with the fixed horse race twenty years ago?
Don't worry, all questions are answered in an artful although sometimes graphically violent style. By the end, you will find yourself nodding your head and picking up an all the clues that the director had left for you throughout the movie. Although the film is rated ?R? for graphic violence (and two very brief scenes of an adult nature), it is worth the price of admission.