After working together on romantic thriller Wicker Park, Josh Hartnett re-teamed with Irish director Paul McGuigan for Lucky Number Slevin. It's a wisecracking thriller also starring Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis and Ben Kingsley, but despite the starry line-up it wasn't the runaway hit some people may have expected. Still, for an indie flick that's "never as smart as it thinks" the numbers were at least respectable.

Slevin Away

On DVD the film is accompanied by a rather formulaic 'Making Of' featurette. Thankfully there is some direct behind-the-scenes access between the usual backslapping and summing up of characters. What's clear is that everyone had a great time on the set. We see snippets of Willis and Morgan mucking about between takes while other actors brainstorm before a key scene. Hartnett states plainly, "Working on this film is probably the best experience I've ever had."

Lucky Break

The 'Making Of' featurette also includes a few interesting notes on how the project came into being. Basically writer Jason Smilovic submitted the script on spec and it ended up on a slush pile before producer Tyler Mitchell picked it up. From then on he describes the process of getting it made as "an uphill battle," but he doesn't go into too much detail about that. There are also hints about the characters being rewritten after actors like Willis and Lucy Liu signed up, but again this isn't delved into and Smilovic barely gets a word in anyway.

In the end Lucky Number Slevin makes for quite a passable night in, but with such a scanty extras menu, you may feel short-changed.

EXTRA FEATURES

Lucky Number Slevin is released on DVD on Monday 10th July