Your mind will not accept a game this big
After seven years in solitary, Jake Green is released from prison. In the next two years, he amasses a lot of money by gambling. He's ready to seek his revenge on Dorothy (Mr. D) Macha, a violence-prone casino owner who sent Jake to prison. He humiliates Macha in front of Macha's lieutenants, leaves, and keels over. Doctors tell him he has a rare disease and will die in three days; Macha also puts a hit out on him. Loan sharks, Zack and Avi, demand Jake's cash and complete fealty in return for protection. Jake complies, and through narration and flashbacks, we watch him through at least three days of schemes, danger, and redemption. Who is his greatest enemy?
Genre(s): Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Runtime: 115 minutes
Rating: 6.2/10 (25,799 votes)
Release Date: 11 September 2005
Country: France, UK
Languages: English, Cantonese
Company: Europa Corp.
Sound: DTS, Dolby Digital
MPAA: Rated R for violence, language and some nudity.
Director(s): Guy Ritchie
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Producer(s):
Luc Besson - co-producer
Steve Christian - executive producer
Steve Clark-Hall - line producer
Mehdi Sayah - assistant producer
Virginie Silla - producer
Pierre Spengler - co-producer
Writer(s):
Luc Besson - adaptation
Guy Ritchie - written by
Cast:
Jason Statham - Jake
Ray Liotta - Macha
Vincent Pastore - Zach
André Benjamin - Avi
Terence Maynard - French Paul
Andrew Howard - Billy
Mark Strong - Sorter
Francesca Annis - Lily Walker
Anjela Lauren Smith - Doreen
Elana Binysh - Rachel
Music: Nathaniel Mechaly
Luc Besson - co-producer
Steve Christian - executive producer
Steve Clark-Hall - line producer
Mehdi Sayah - assistant producer
Virginie Silla - producer
Pierre Spengler - co-producer
Writer(s):
Luc Besson - adaptation
Guy Ritchie - written by
Cast:
Jason Statham - Jake
Ray Liotta - Macha
Vincent Pastore - Zach
André Benjamin - Avi
Terence Maynard - French Paul
Andrew Howard - Billy
Mark Strong - Sorter
Francesca Annis - Lily Walker
Anjela Lauren Smith - Doreen
Elana Binysh - Rachel
Music: Nathaniel Mechaly
Posted on: December 6, 2007
February 6th, 2009
This is a test.
This is a test of the system, to determine who is who and who isspeaking to whom. You think this is me you are watching, but it is youmaking these letters into bits of yourself.
Its a banal, sophomoric insight. Its the stuff of retail religions. Itsaped by dopes. But none of that makes it less rich for artisticexploration.
Richie is something of a nitwit with an amusing style which mergesstaccato internal narration with clean, brisk editing. His stuff issimple, cinematic fun. Here he takes this idea, common even in AdultSwim 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 adisaster as a dinner companion. Listening to him is like listening toan acid burnout case, and it makes me sick. Yet his films are as deepas they come because he opens a door and leaves room for me to furnishthe place. His films are genius so he doesn't have to be.
This is a small case of that. Except for some amazing missteps (thecartoon, the reversed car crash), the guys in the hot tub, the lollipoplips…. this is a Stata Center, a jumbled space that is friendly toadvanced ideas merely because it is jumbled and open — and not becauseit 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. Itsthe cinematic quality of the room. Its easy to read. It provideslaunching pads. It doesn't matter at all what it says. In fact it evensays it doesn't matter what it says. It pretends to be a challenge thatis equal of the highest level of play (and believes it) but at the sametime it allows that this is always bogus.
Its no Greenaway, Kar-Wai or Medem. There is nothing here to find, noimplanted wisdom, quite the opposite. But you will find it worthwhile.
Ted's Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
March 14th, 2009
If you value style over content, see this movie. If you valuepsycho-babble over coherent story-telling, see this movie. If you thinkMadonna is the sh*t, see this movie.
Otherwise, stay away.
Ritchie, using the familiar hook of the gritty crime flick to bring inhis Lock, Stock and Snatch audience, proceeds to spend 104 minutes ofyour valuable time wanking off.
The film, a fantasy set in an alternative universe that is a crossbetween New Jersey and Blackpool, gets off to a rousing start, thenquickly devolves into the world's longest MTV video with gag-inducingphilosophical pretensions.
I won't bore you with its professed philosophy, but suffice it to saythat it is so obtuse the director had to resort to running interviewclips with various PHDs over the closing credits to explain it. No, I'mnot kidding.
The movie's one redeeming feature is the stylized violence that eruptsall too infrequently, given that it is a blessed relief from theendless explorations of the main character's internal "thoughts." Toobad those scenes aren't in another movie.
Give this one a pass, friend.
March 30th, 2009
I didn't know a lot about this movie coming in to it….and I don'tknow a lot about it coming out either.
I liked Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Snatch movie – both slick, quick andnicely shot, edited and snappy. Also Statham's best work too (after allhis Transporter must go down as one the WORST franchises ever – so badin fact that I refuse to even watch his Crank franchise !!! ). So I waslooking forward to watching this movie.
Statham's narration is always a nice touch and the first 20 minutes ofthe movie was stylish and very interesting. I was hooked. But then camethe bad stuff:
- a complex, incoherent plot which made my brain start to hurt tryingto figure out what the hell was going on. I like a movie that makes methink like the next guy – but I am not ashamed to say that this was onestep too far for me.
- repetitive situations, scenes and even lines. The Liotta characterseemed to say the say thing to his right hand man – Paul – over andover. I'm not sure what Liotta thought of this when shooting but surelyhe must have twigged – 'Why am I saying the same stuff over and overagain?'
- Pretentious, pompous quotes about 'to be the best – you must play thebest', and situations which to me did not make much sense. A tremendousscene in it's own right has Statham getting knocked down by a car,smashing through the windscreen in the midst of it. Then it is reversedin super-slo-mo only for his second encounter to result in a closemiss. A bit like Ronan Keating's video of Garth Brook's song from a fewyears ago – If Tomorrow Never Comes. But it made no sense in thecontext of the movie. The problem here is I thought the end of thisfilm would never come.
Throw in some manga animation ala Scanner Darkly, chess moves, loads ofpeople getting shot, black outs, intriguing notes which turn out tosave your life, prison and a battle between the good and evil portionsof your brain/imagination/psyche – and you have enough fodder for anentire series of Lost – all wrapped up in two hours. But like that TVseries – it doesn't make any sense. The end too was a throw away one.When Jason Statham's character no longer fears Ray Liotta, itapparently drives Liotta crazy enough to blow his head off in the finalscene. Why? Liotta is supposedly a hard man but is driven to suicide bynothing more than a pitying smile on the face of Statham?
For me the film is a mishmash of The Usual Suspects and Fight Club -but nowhere near as good or defining as those two. During the movie Ididn't think Statham had even left prison or had even been in prison -nor the characters of Andre 3000 and his sidekick were real. But thereare so many interpretations to be got from this and holes big enough tojump through in the plot – that you could put anything in here andexplain it away on inner imagination.
The style of the movie was impressive, the lighting fit the mood, theeffects were fine, the acting was OK and the set design was good. Butas with all films – it will be judged on the story and that is whatreally killed the movie for me. There was just too much psychobabblenonsense involved.
4/10.
April 19th, 2009
I agree with the comments about the ego and would like to add a pieceto it. This conversation takes place between 1:39:10 and 1:40:00 andit's my favourite.
"you know what's so elegant about this little game, jake? nobody knowswhere the Enemy is.. they don't even know He exists. He's in every oneof their heads. ..and they trust Him, because they think they are Him!if you try to destroy Him to save them, they'll destroy you to saveHim! aaah, it's beautiful man. you have to admire the opponentselegance."
The only enemy = the ego. As we all have it, our mutual enemy is thesame thing. Thus, we are the same thing.
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April 20th, 2009
Before I begin this review I would like to say That I was a big fan ofLock Stock, Snatch and more recently Rock n' Rolla. That being said Iwill continue. When I first saw the tailer for Revolver I was excitedto see that Richie had appeared to want to make a darker gangstermovie. The movie appeared to be visually impressive (which at times itactually was)and even more impressively it had Ray Liotta in it.
If you have not seen the film I suggest you just watch the trailer asit will undoubtedly make more sense and be infinitely enjoyable.Understandably (but idiotically) Richie jumped to the defence of themovie amidst a flurry of terrible reviews, stating that it was forintelligent people and he was right – it was made for intelligentpeople to avoid1 Aside of the aforementioned visuals and a decent scenewith Beethoven's moonlight sonata playing in the background the film ispure excrement. To my utter dismay, I discovered that the film was afarce after paying for my cinema ticket (I hoped the reviews were alittle harsh) and sitting in the cinema for two hours. Worst of all itis only in the last 15 minutes of the film that the audience discoversthat 2 hours would have been better spent locked in a refrigerationunit.
No matter how many quotes Richie plasters across the screen, this filmwill never ever be clever. An apt analogy would be writing a complexmathematical equation on a piece of paper and pretending you solved itby writing some Greek and some numbers next to it – It may look clever,but its not and it doesn't make sense. That is Revolver – Richie posesa question and then tries to answer it with some vague, narrativedeficient conclusion.
Poor Ray Liotta does his best to distract with some committed acting.However given the abyss that is this film he simply manages to overactand is unable to save the movie. In an attempt to create a UsualSuspect-esquire movie Richie ignores the fact that it needs to makesense and tries to fool the audience into thinking their has been somemonumental twist. Trust me there has not! The climax of thispretentious excrement is Jason Statham's character shift in anelevator. Never have I felt more compelled to throw stuff at a cinemascreen. The intended intelligent twist in the film is so unbelievablystupid that I wanted to hurt myself. I left the cinema worried that Ihad missed some crucial scene before realising that the real shock wasthat I had paid to see this film.
Should you wish to understand the Revolver experience just booksomewhere nice to go holiday, spend all day travelling, stop a coupleof miles away from the hotel/resort throw your holiday money down adrain, poor petrol over yourself and then set fire to your face. Itreally is that pointless.
The only people who will think this film is clever are stupid people.If you want to watch a really clever film, rent 'Old Boy'. If you dowatch this film and think it was clever and are not Japanese, do notwatch 'Old Boy' as it has subtitles which you will probably struggle toread.
I give this film 3/10, but only if you stop it 15mins before the end.That way you can make up your own ending!