The Kansas City shuffle

It was probably around the end of 2006. I was serving as a Captain as Aide-de-Camp to Australia’s Vice Chief of the Defence Force — a Lieutenant General, a three-star officer, who also served as Chief of Joint Operations. Operational tempo was high. Iraq and Afghanistan were live, demanding and immediate. We travelled frequently. There was not much downtime. What little I had was usually spent reading, thinking, or caring for my then-toddler daughter.

But when we travelled abroad, there were small moments of cultural indulgence. A few hours on an aircraft. A meal tray. A glass of wine. An inflight movie. A chance to watch someone else tell a story while the world below disappeared beneath cloud.

One such movie was Lucky Number Slevin.

Released in 2006, it was a stylish crime thriller starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Lucy Liu. On the surface, it was clever, violent, witty and slightly absurd. But beneath the surface, it was really a film about deception. Not simple deception. Not merely a lie. Something more elegant. Something more strategic.

Its central idea was the Kansas City Shuffle.