Revolver (2005/I)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Guy Ritchie

Writers:

Luc Besson (adaptation)
Guy Ritchie (written by)

Release Date:

22 September 2005 (Russia)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Your mind will not accept a game this big

Plot:

Gambler Jake Green enters into a game with potentially deadly consequences.

Plot Keywords:

Casino | Prison | Gambling | Loan Shark | Flashback

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
Faruk Pruti	...	Ivan (Billy's Bodyguard)
Shend	...	Teddy (Billy's Bodyguard)
Bill Moody	...	Al
Stephen Walters	...	Joe
Vincent Riotta	...	Benny

Also Known As:

Revólver (Argentina) (DVD title) [es]
Revolver (Greece) (DVD title) [el]
Revolver (Italy) (DVD title) [it]
Tabanca (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language and some nudity.

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

France | UK

Language:

English | Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:15 | Ireland:16 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Portugal:M/16 | Finland:K-15 | Singapore:M18 | Japan:PG-12 | Netherlands:16 | Argentina:16 | Germany:16 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Isle of Man

Company:

Europa Corp.

Trivia:

Harvey Keitel passed on this project.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Zach points his gun at Jake in the elevator, the hammer on the gun goes from down to up between shots.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Jake Green: One thing I've learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there's always an opponent, and there's always a victim. The trick is to know when you're the latter, so you can become the former.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Robert De Niro/Destiny's Child (#30.8)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.14 in C Sharp-Minor, Op. 27, No. 2

This film is good

OK... this movie so far has been slated by critics and board-posters alike (although playing devil's advocate you could suggest that critics are often people who didn't make it for themselves as film-makers, and board posters are often people who didn't make it for themselves as critics) so I wanted to sit in Guy's corner with the magic sponge to perhaps reach maybe a couple of the people who've decided not to see the film based on how everybody seems to be looking down their collective nose of approval at it.

The film's biggest flaw in earning wide support is how unexpectedly complex it is. This has been described many times as as making the film "inaccessible" to the viewer. The film's chronology is relatively non-linear and the characters are used as not only a means of storytelling but as a device for showing us the subtle (or not so subtle) hints of bias we give things as we commit them to memory, IE. Ray Liotta's character brandishing a gun saying the words "fear me" is portrayed as both tragically pathetic (from Statham's POV) or interrogating and bold (from Liotta's POV). This is but one example of Ritchie's far more mature approach he has taken to film-making with Revolver, we have a storyline which is pretty archetypal (the strong but silent gritty anti-hero gets released from jail with a score to settle but gets drawn inadvertently into a world of corruption... I mean it's paint by numbers film noir here guys, all the way down to the vague poetic choice of diction and the gritty voice-overs) but then Guy has taken this framework to make a number of extremely philosophical and complex points.

Take the scene where Jason Statham's character runs afoul of a car. This throwaway sequence could have been emitted from the film and made no difference to the story whatsoever... but Ritchie is making point about how such little chance happenings such as receiving a phone call can make the difference between life and death.

So the final act of the movie is pretty mind boggling, I'd be taking the p*ss if I said I didn't spend the last 20 minutes or so of the film turning to my date going "uh... wtf?"... but that is the shoddiest reason to disregard a piece of art. It is far too easy to dislike something because you find it hard to understand. And even easier to say "well nobody else seemed to understand it so it must be a real turd of a film!". In my humble opinion, Revolver is a stylish, complex and mature piece of modern art which should be greeted with the same manner we would give the work of the Saatchi Brothers. If we choose this opportunity to collectively say "Ah sh*t, I wanted a film about a load of bleeding' cockney gangsters in-nit loll... Guy Ritchie is a tit!" then the day will come when film-makers are allowed only to make that which is expected of them by shallow, crappy people. Just because Guy made a name for himself with funny, cheeky cockney romps, doesn't mean he can't be deep without being "pretentious". Funny people can be thoughtful too.