Revolver

Revolver is one of Guy Ritchie's most underestimated films. Stylistically, he is built the best of all previous paintings and completely rehabilitated the actor after Swept Away. One of the best roles for Jason Statham. The open ending, of course, spoils the impressions of the film, but the main plot twist worked.

Whether you enjoy watching "Revolver" or not, I would say that it is not among director Guy Ritchie's best work. Yes, it's stylish, has some remarkable camerawork and effects, and is, as usual, ultra-violent, but in the end the story seemed confusing and not all that satisfying.

Explaining the story in "Revolver" is almost impossible, as it's a very confusing film that would get better if you watched it repeatedly...though I am not inclined to do so. Suffice to say, Mr. Green (Jason Statham) is having a VERY bad period in his life and he's being manipulated and controlled by some higher power...as if it's all a game. In the process, many other bad people and gangsters are killed.

The problem with the film is that the audience is deliberately held on the edge of their seats waiting to see WHO and WHY all this is occurring to Green. This sets expectations VERY high....and for me the ending just seemed like a lot of mumbo-jumbo that really didn't explain anything. So, if you are a person who was left confused and mad at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey", well, you'll feel pretty much the same at the end of "Revolver". Overall, a somewhat unpleasant and bloody film that just didn't offer the payoff or the enjoyment of Ritchie's other films, such as "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" or "Snatch". Parts of the film were great (I loved the bald hitman) and parts were just unpleasant and confusing.

After seven years in solitary confinement between a cell containing a chess master and a cell containing a con artist, Jake leaves to seek revenge on Macha with the vast amount of money he has gotten from gambling. He starts his revenge with humiliation but soon blacks out only to be told by a doctor that he has mere days to live. Mysterious loan sharks Zack and Avi offer him "protection" from death in return for all his money. Meanwhile Macha puts a hit out on Jake. With death and betrayal everywhere, somebody is playing the ultimate high-stakes game – but are all the players known, and who will emerge victorious?

I had someone ask me recently if I'd seen this because they wanted a second opinion. The reason for this, they said, was that they thought it was good one minute, then terrible the next, then maybe it is good again, then not, then it ended. Of course being asked for an opinion peaked my interest (and boosted my ego) and I was planning to watch it anyway, just to see for myself what about it deserved such a slating from the critics. In answer to the latter statement it must be said that, unsurprisingly, the film did not deserve the universal condemnation it received in the press and in truth it was just another time to lay into someone who had gotten too big for his boots and perhaps needed taking down a peg or two – and a weak project was the perfect reason. It happens every year – critics have so many mediocre films to write about that a good one sees loving reviews in the same way as a bad one is the chance to write a really memorable, scathing review – whether either it is truly deserved or not.

So this leaves me with my colleague's statement and on that I found him to be accurate because at times it does SEEM to be a really cool film that is going somewhere interesting. This impression is built around a good start and pace to the film, with plenty of tough posturing, mystery and style. In fact, to deny that the film is delivered with style would be bad form indeed because the film does look very cool and very interesting. Problem is that, at some point, that isn't enough and once you get beyond the halfway mark you get the increasing feeling that this isn't going anywhere nearly as interesting or clever as you would like to think. By the ending that feeling will be confirmed as correct as the film stumbles into a pretentious and poorly delivered conclusion to the story and characters. Ritchie had been quite unreasonably arrogant about people who don't "get" his film but to me not only is it his fault for the ham-fisted delivery of his twist, but as writer he also has come up with an idea for a twist that reads like a poor copy of other, better films. It just doesn't play and the cold (if stylish) approach keeps the audience at a distance so we care less than we should and are given more opportunity to see the twists as pretentious and half-cooked.

Within this messy and slightly nonsensical affair the cast actually do pretty well by playing to the style rather than the content. Statham makes the best of his situation with another tough presence on screen even if, ultimately, I don't think he buys his character himself and thus cannot be part of the sale to the audience. Liotta I quite liked even though the "unhinged violent criminal" thing is pretty much the equivalent of him staring out the window with everything set to cruise control. Pastore and Benjamin are a cool presence who drive the film early on (with the mystery of their characters) but gradually become less engaging as the plot unravels. The rest of the cast pretty much provide solid enough tough men without (fortunately) sinking into the easy "apples and pears" type performances that Ritchie seems to like in his films generally. The only performance of real note though is from Ritchie as director because he pulls everything together with a lot of visual style and imagination; shame then that the worst "performance" is also from him as a writer because he has produced a script so full of its own cleverness that it cannot be bothered to aim for engaging the audience and sits back arrogantly while the delivery is fudged and incoherent.

Revolver is not the screaming disaster that everyone would have you believe, but this is as close to a recommendation as I can give it. Visually it is stylish and early on this sense of tough coolness does draw you into the plot to see where it goes. Sadly though the answer is that it doesn't go anywhere worth being and it goes there with a slow pace that suggests it is being very clever and worthy when really the plot is not anywhere as clever or as developed as it needed to be. It isn't style without substance – it is style with poor substance.

This is a test.

This is a test of the system, to determine who is who and who is speaking to whom. You think this is me you are watching, but it is you making these letters into bits of yourself.

Its a banal, sophomoric insight. Its the stuff of retail religions. Its aped by dopes. But none of that makes it less rich for artistic exploration.

Richie is something of a nitwit with an amusing style which merges staccato internal narration with clean, brisk editing. His stuff is simple, cinematic fun. Here he takes this idea, common even in Adult Swim cartoons on TeeVee, and serves it up as a sort of kindergarten "Memento." (or more aptly "Old Boy.")

But. But in my world it doesn't matter. I think David Lynch would be a disaster as a dinner companion. Listening to him is like listening to an acid burnout case, and it makes me sick. Yet his films are as deep as they come because he opens a door and leaves room for me to furnish the place. His films are genius so he doesn't have to be.

This is a small case of that. Except for some amazing missteps (the cartoon, the reversed car crash), the guys in the hot tub, the lollipop lips.... this is a Stata Center, a jumbled space that is friendly to advanced ideas merely because it is jumbled and open -- and not because it has any sense.

I believe this is because where the Stata Center is jumbled spatially (its at MIT), this is jumbled cinematically in much the same way. Its the cinematic quality of the room. Its easy to read. It provides launching pads. It doesn't matter at all what it says. In fact it even says it doesn't matter what it says. It pretends to be a challenge that is equal of the highest level of play (and believes it) but at the same time it allows that this is always bogus.

Its no Greenaway, Kar-Wai or Medem. There is nothing here to find, no implanted wisdom, quite the opposite. But you will find it worthwhile.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

As others have stated, it might not be the best of its kind (movies with many layers that are hard to read or even to fully comprehend with just one watch), but it's still more than solid. If you don't like a movie that is not just entertainment (which is OK), there are other places to look for that. Guy Ritchie did "Lock, Stock ..." and "Snatch" and other movies who are more on the entertainment side, but with this, he tried (and imo succeeded) to add depth to that.

And Mr. Ritchie knows what the story is (even if some viewers might think and feel different), which is clear in his audio commentary for the movie. What will not become too clear, is what the movie is about. That is a personal experience and you yourself might be the your enemy - to liking this movie ...