Keep on revolvin'

Given an almighty kickin' when originally released Guy Ritchie's Revolver turns out to be, well, not terrible. It's confused, pretentious and makes little if any sense but there are far worse films out there (Spawn I'm looking at you).

Revolving around (see what i did there?) Jake Green (Jason Statham) a gambler recently released from prison the film charts his revenge mission against the casino owner who put him in jail. At least that's the starting off point as after about ten minutes Jake collapses and via some highly dubious reasoning and a deeply unconvincing con ends up under the thumbs of a pair of loan sharks. One of which strangely is Andre (3000) Benjamin who however disappointingly doesn't shake it like a Polaroid picture once, but he does hold is own in the acting stakes (and yes I know Statham isn't exactly Gielgud but he does do stoic hard man as well as anyone else).

From here things get a bit messy as the script attempts to play around with narrative structure and with making you think everyone is conning everyone else and that's before it introduces a Keyser Soze figure who may actually be another side of Jake but is also implied to be a manifestation of people's greed. It's like you can hear Ritchie saying "How's that for a high-brow concept, hmm?"

Now I accept the film deserves a certain level of criticism on the basis that it makes no sense at all when you think about it for more than thirty seconds and for the fact it tries way too hard to be smart and clever, but comes off as the guy who answers every question watching University Challenge before the question is finished only to get it wrong. It however does not deserve to be lumped in with the likes of Battlefield Earth (which frankly is just bland rather than terrible) and Spawn as a film preceded by a reputation that smells worse than two year old ham. And I'll tell you why.

It's because for all his flaws Guy Ritchie still has an eye for good a looking shot and a flair for uniquely energetic sequences. Standing out is a sequence where a hitman takes out a building full of goons, something we've seen time and again but here it's still got a pace and energy and imagination in it's execution that you rarely see.

Elsewhere we have deliberately over stylised low angles, heavy use of filters to create strong images and even evidence that Guy's been taking tips from Quentin with some unexpected animated interludes.



If the film had been put together to by a jobbing pair of hands (Are you busy Mr Verbinski?) I've no doubt it would be a far less entertaining two hours than it is now. It is a bit of a confused mess that much is true but there really are for worse things out there (whisper it now, Freddy Got Fingered) and it does win points for at least trying to be something different.

And after the great experiment and the great write off (Swept Away) Mr Madonna (at least at time of writing) is once again playing to his strengths with Rock'n'rolla which is looking good but will undoubtedly lead to another wave of Brit-crim wannabes which is bad.