Revenge for Jolly!

"Revenge for Jolly" is a crime drama masquerading as a dark comedy. It starts out very serious. Harry (Brian Petsos) is a good guy who has done bad things and is in over his head. But then bad guys kill his dog and he and his cousin, Cecil (Oscar Isaac), are out for revenge. And then with another bad decision Harry kills a guy. Ha ha ha, isn't that hilarious?

Seriously. At that moment the film decides to take a dark crime drama and turn it into a comedy. Follow up a murder with witty repartee which should only be attempted by good writers. These are not good writers. The entire beginning of the movie was told by narration, the rest of the movie was one-off scenes with good actors. Some of which were mildly funny, most of which were extremely violent, none of which were cohesive.

This is one of the worst attempts I have ever seen at a dark comedy. The actors played it all so seriously (and frequently it was very serious) but then there would be a number of ridiculously violent acts and then they would have a ridiculous nonsense conversation to be played for laughs. I get the juxtaposition, but none of it worked together.

The lead actor couldn't play subtle at all. Isaac does a great job of playing a bad guy who isn't so bad (he can also throw in some subtle comedy) but his character was terrible. Cecil was supposedly a good guy with a bad cousin but he was just bad with no redeeming qualities. I think the writers thought that since he wasn't as vicious as Harry, the audience would like him. As for Harry, extreme pet fanatics would understand him. But has no one ever heard of moderation?

A number of good actors come in for one scene. Most of their comedy was non-sequitors, and most really weren't funny. I did laugh at Adam Brody and Bobby Moynihan playing unscrupulous lawyers, but that was just the beginning of one scene. Most of the comedy was to come from the dialogue, but it was terrible dialogue and shouldn't be uttered by any actor no matter what the skill level.

I do at least understand why all of the big name actors agreed to be in it. What's the one type of scene that all actors love? Well, they all get to do it. I don't think that's a good reason to be in a movie, but that's for a different discussion. The problem with "Revenge for Jolly" is that it couldn't get across what kind of movie it was. Is it a crime drama? Or a dark comedy? How about a satire of a crime drama? Or is it a satire of a dark comedy? There was crimes and there was comedy but they didn't go together.

This movie kind of felt like a lost episode of the soprano's only more insane. One man comes home to find his tiny dog murdered and then goes on a killing spree to avenge the poor pooch with the help of his equally insane cousin. Imagine Frank Castle had a pet cat he loved dearly and found out the someone took the cat and killed it but he doesn't know that the king pin was behind the murder and goes out with dead pool looking for answers... that gives you an idea of what comes next in this film. I can't recommend the movie for everyone but if your in the mood for a dark comedy thriller it has its moments and some over the top hammy acting and ludicrous violence, so it might make your night.

Well after 20 years after he burst on to the scene with his take on the gory, dark comedy thriller genre there are still Quentin Tarantino fanboys who think its easy to make such films.

Revenge for Jolly is revenge drama as Harry (Brian Petsos) in debt to some bad guys finds out that they killed his dog and he is not happy.

Along with his cousin Cecil (Oscar Isaac) they go out for revenge which involves killing lots of other people even if they are not that bad. There are scenes of violence mixed in with silly conversations, getting wasted and tagged on narration none of which makes the film funny or dark.

So much bloodshed over one dog which involves Harry killing even one of his friends, no police in sight and lots of star cameos many of them wasted

Oscar Isaac is too good for this type of picture. Writer and star Brian Petsos needs to learn what makes a Tarantino film tick.

...because if you spend the next hour and a half watching this, then that toilet isn't going to clean itself. Maybe that's too obscure? I should preface this by saying that I did not watch the entire movie. Some may feel (myself somewhat included) that I don't have the ability to give a comprehensive review. Well, screw it; I'm going to anyway. Here are my thoughts:

I had this movie for a week or so and got it because it sounded good, but every time I went to watch a movie something else always looked better. I actually went on here looking for a little push to make myself watch it. At that point there were only two reviews so I figured I'd be the tiebreaker and watch it.

Well, as you already know, I didn't make it. It's one of those movie that isn't good in this amorphous, hard-to-define way. Like you can analyze specific things and it all checks out but stick it all together and it's a big suck-fest. There's plenty of wonderful celebrities but the few I saw just pop in and out (that could change later on). It's basically a movie about those two guys that no one's heard of.

Someone asked, "Who the hell is Brian Pestos?" or whatever they said. Something like that. Anyway, I don't know either but I don't like his face. No, that shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether a movie has merit. On the other hand, if you can't stand looking at someone and they're in practically every scene then you've got a problem. I felt greasier just watching him. You'll want to splash some cold water on your face ahead of time.

Before I dump on this movie anymore, I will say that it could possibly be good and I just wasn't in the mood. But that does tell me that it's one of those movies you've got to work with to enjoy and that's asking a lot of me. I'm an American and I deserve instant gratification w/as little effort as humanly possible. So yeah, this movie's horrible now cuz I say so, haha. Eh, I won't get rid of it just yet, but if I had to say, I'd say it sucks.

This is the feature film debut of Chadd Harbold, after six short films (of which one is free to watch here on IMDb), with a script by main role man Brian Petsos, which here is Harry and really what we could say is a dog's worst friend.

The film appears to be a black comedy with a great cast, but is not as funny as you think if is.The first 15 minutes seems OK, but then we understand this isn't a black comedy. It seems like Harbold wants to make a Tarantino-flick, though it's quite far from it. The plot has a good idea, and this film could have been great. The problem is that it isn't very funny, just violent. It's so not funny, that I wonder if it's supposed to be funny at all.

It's about two low life (or no life) drinking buddies which goes on a killer rampage to revenge the killing of a small dog, Jolly. They're completely unsafe and insane, played by Brian Petsos and Oscar Isaak.

What is always great, is small supporting Rolex by know actors, and there's a bunch of them here, like Elijah Wood, Kirsten Wiig, David Rasche, Ryan Phillippe, Adam Brody, Garret Dillahunt, Kevin Corrigan, Stephen Payne, Gillian Jacobs, Amy Seimetz, Helen Rogers, Bobby Moynihan, John Di Benedetto, Brian Donahue and so on...

The wedding scene is the most violent since the Kill Bill parody "Kill Buljo", a strange mix of provoked killings and mercy killings confuses a bit. Such a shame the potent cast didn't get a better script to work with. The film ends without being fulfilled, neither do we as an audience. Obviously some talent here, stylish, and some great use of music, but it falls flat to the ground, I'm afraid. An premature unfinished film, which any remake would be better.