Revolver (2005)

If you heard that two film guys like Luc Besson and Guy Ritchie were going to team up and make a psychological crime action drama, you’d wet your pants, right? Well, it turns out they already did team up on 2005′s Revolver starring Ritchie regular Jason Statham. Here’s my review:

Atypically hirsute, Statham plays Jake Green, recently released from prison for a 7-year bid, and keen on exacting retribution from the man he thinks put him there: Dorothy Macha (Ray Liotta). A solid premise for an action crime drama if ever there was one. What follows, however, is a confusing mess of hipster movie clichés. It’s all slick camera movements, intense close-ups, piles of cash, big shiny black Caddys, Chinese Triads, a mysterious and powerful figure waiting in the wings, and gunplay. Lots of gunplay. In short, it feels like something Ritchie has done before, i.e., a rap video with no girls and only one black guy.

Not to sell it completely short, there is the interesting subtext of psychological con-artistry. Just who is gaming who in this many-layered web of grifting? Jake knows all the rules — repeats them incessantly in voice over — but why isn’t he able to use them to his advantage? Or is he playing ‘possum? Just pretending to let his emotional baggage cloud his path to a successful reversal of fortune? We can never be sure if Jake is being gained for real or just going along with the snare (a fairly transparent ruse surrounding a terminal medical diagnosis) so he can turn the tables later.

Of one thing, any viewer would be certain: there’s a switcheroo coming down the line. But for it to work we (the audience) need to believe that what preceded it was true. Ritchie and Besson forget that a plot twist can’t succeed without a proverbial fish (us) on their proverbial hook.

There are many ways to interpret “Revolver” even while you’re still watching it. André Benjamin and Vincent Pastore swoop in like guardian angels, saving Jake’s life time and again. So is there a religious theme or is that coincidental? Is it simply about dumb luck? Is Jake actually orchestrating everything himself? Or is the enigmatic Mr. Gold pulling the strings for an entirely unforeseen purpose?

In the end it turns that Revolver owes a lot to movies like Memento and Fight Club. Like those films, this one hinges on the psychology of one man: Jake Green is more complicated than even he himself realizes. Unlike Memento and Fight Club however, Revolver falls a bit flat. It feels like watching a favorite baseball player (Ritchie) swing and miss at three pitches you know he could hit. I am not joking when I say that the most interesting part of this film is listening to the the short interviews with psychiatrists over the end credits. They are all experts in the concept of the ego, and each sum up the point of the entire movie in just a few sentences.