Revolução

"Revolution" could have been a fascinating story. Unfortunately, it seems that director Hugh Hudson had shot his entire wad when he made the Oscar-winning "Chariots of Fire". Both "Greystoke" and this film were sloppy, choppy messes with no narrative flow. It is confounding, because it is obvious that there was a lot of attention to detail in parts of "Revolution". But only in parts. There is as much here that simply doesn't fit--the most glaring example being Al Pacino performance as a colonial trapper. He apparently forgot what movie he was in, and frequently uses a halting accent very similar to the one he used only two years earlier in Brian DePalma's "Scarface". And I don't think his character was supposed to be Cuban. The rest of the film produces the same effect you would get from flipping through a beautiful set of American Revolution postcards--at random.

I've just seen "Revolution" on TV and I have to say that it's a much better movie than one may think. Sometimes a movie is worth-seeing only because of its wonderful production values. And "Revolution" is an eye-popping visual feat: wonderful cinematography, first-rate period details. I might say that beside Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" and Tony Richardson's "Tom Jones", this is the most beautifully made period movie about the eighteenth century. "Revolution" is also an important film because there are only about a dozen films on the Revolutionary War and almost all of them are a matter of obscurity - at least for a Hungarian movie lover. The most popular is Roland Emmerich's "The Patriot" (2000). In my opinion that's a much worse film than Hudson's maligned film. When "Revolution" was released it was a critical and commercial disaster. I think it didn't fit in any of the movie trends of the 1980s. But in the future it might be regarded as a flawed but valuable movie. Its flaws are obvious and much-discussed so I don't want to speak about them. If you're interested in beautiful period pieces and the Revolutionary War you might like this movie.

As a high school US History teacher I often use a few scenes from this film in my classes. I have found value in some elements of this dark, brooding, and sluggish film and think it deserves some credit. Examples are: NY City in the opening and closing scenes, (they are our history books brought to life). The battles of NY, specifically Long Island and Brooklyn Heights (the film is vague as to which exact battle this is) the complicated world of Nastasia Kinski's character Daisy, daughter of loyalists, mother yes, but which side is her father really on? Additionally, the miserable conditions at Valley Forge, and very importantly, Tom and Ned "quitting" the war after their first battle (Historically Washington's "grand army" melted away by the autumn of 1776). As a teacher I love the resource of this film. As a parent I want my children to be exposed, As a period movie fan I don't love this film very much.

Sort of both a proto-PATRIOT (though mildly less-addlebrained) with reverse-elements of LAST OF THE MOHICANS (the Huron are the good guys this time around), this film covers the criminally underrepresented ground of the American Revolutionary War in a generally hackneyed way. I did like the recurrence of some elements in the film, such as how it was really "about" bonding with and protecting sons and how the careers of protagonist Pacino contrasted with oddly-cast British antagonist Sutherland. The two characters feel cartoonish at times as Sutherland carries out several heartless atrocities, exemplifying the un-nuanced way British are often depicted as villains, but he also impressively comes off like an honorable human being at the same time.

There's about as many baffling decisions on display as there are surprisingly good ones. What barely qualifies as a "love story" between Pacino and Kinski never makes sense and it's never clear why bougie but idealistic Kinski gets so enthralled with apathetic commoner Pacino. All of Kinski's scenes slow the film down along with many irritating scenes of Pacino getting wronged and stolen from left-and-right with him usually responding by angrily shouting at someone. The actual battle scenes come off very stiff and awkward, though to be fair that was generally the fighting style of the time.

I do give the film credit for actually recasting one of the characters as he ages instead of relying on goofy makeup or prosthetics. I also give it credit for the ending holding back on the most obvious way of concluding the narrative and reminding us that the characters in the film actually are supposed to be human beings. It is a bit baffling though that since the film was made in Europe with so much British money that they went with Donald Sutherland as the villain with a distracting accent. They could easily have cast any number of local British character actors of the day (say someone ike Anthony Hopkins, Paul Darrow, John Hurt, etc and the film would have been 50% better.

A good looking film with a couple nice surprises and believable production design, but unfortunately weighed down with too many flaws and pacing issues.

Searching for some short-length used videotapes, I found the laserdisc version of "Revolution," which I'd never seen. This non-letterbox, TV format version had the usual "talking to air" problem with 2.35:1 movies. Although a scratch and miscellaneous dirt made the picture skip/repeat/wobble, it was an interesting foxhole-level look at the American Revolution. The scenery, set design, costumes, and varied kinds of people made me think that this was Sergio Leone's take on The War for Independence. Was Al Pacino believable as a backwoods English colonist? No, but like a scratch running through a film, the "speech impediment" is overlooked as the tale unfolds. This film, unlike "The Patriot," shows camp followers, Indians on both sides, fighting women, "Not Worth a Continental" issues, lots of dirt and the conventions and results of 18th century warfare. Valley Forge isn't as grim an encampment as paintings and written records reported, but it's a close miss for the English countryside location. Are the characters believable? Hard to tell, since their histories and motives aren't complete. (Having the action jump place to place with jumps in time make this a "fill-in-the-missing-backstory" exercise found in James Clavell's book "Nobel House" series.) Is it an interesting movie? Definitely, and has that 18th century "fleas, dirt, and grease" look that is missing from "The Patriot." 7/10, for presenting issues and motives that turned English colonists into Americans.