Category: Directed by Paul McGuigan

  • Wicker Park (2004, Paul McGuigan)

    Wicker Park is a psychological drama, not thriller. While director McGuigan occasionally uses thriller-like foreshadowing or ominous sections, Park never forecasts its narrative. Protagonist Josh Hartnett skips an important business trip to China to search for an ex-girlfriend, but he does it all where he lives. The film takes place over three or four days…

  • Push (2009, Paul McGuigan)

    It’s understandable Push bombed at the box office. It’s hard to find a film so with much intelligence in the filmmaking, casting and acting applied to such a subpar script. Strangely, David Bourla’s script isn’t bad in regard to dialogue—there are some great exchanges between Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans—or in how it’s plotted—the narrative…

  • Lucky Number Slevin (2006, Paul McGuigan)

    Exceeding entertaining comedic crime thriller about Josh Hartnett getting stuck between warring New York crime bosses Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. The cast–also including Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis, and Stanley Tucci–is enough to make it watchable but the film’s got an excellent script (by Jason Smilovic) and direction from McGuigan. Great lead performance from Hartnett,…