Revolver

Rating:
Summary: Solid!
Review: I've never seen a movie quite like Revolver. The best descriptor I can muster is "spaghetti thriller". It's a seventies crime drama with a bit of Dirty Harry, a helping of Reservoir Dogs, a few drops of eau de western, a scoop of melodrama, and a dash of political commentary. Though it oscillates between boredom and epic, Revolver delivers the kind of entertainment that today's movies can only parody. If you buy into the characters, you'll be treated to a satisfying drama. If modern sensibilities prevent that, you can at least enjoy the campier aspects and delight in the commanding score.

I may be cynical, but sometimes I look at my DVD collection and see 50 copies of the same movie. Explosions, love interest, conservative "twist" ending, cut! Revolver may be just as derivative of 1970's flicks as the explosion fests of the 21st century are today, but for some reason it was refreshing to watch. I can't see anyone lavishing "rabid fanboy" praise on it, but Revolver was enjoyable, moving at times, and had two great performances. If you thirst for a change of pace, but want to retain the comfortable action standbys of guns and violence, Revolver may be right up your alley. The fantastic extras don't hurt either.

Rating:
Summary: A nice change of pace
Review: I've never seen a movie quite like Revolver. The best descriptor I can muster is "spaghetti thriller". It's a seventies crime drama with a bit of Dirty Harry, a helping of Reservoir Dogs, a few drops of eau de western, a scoop of melodrama, and a dash of political commentary. Though it oscillates between boredom and epic, Revolver delivers the kind of entertainment that today's movies can only parody. If you buy into the characters, you'll be treated to a satisfying drama. If modern sensibilities prevent that, you can at least enjoy the campier aspects and delight in the commanding score.

I may be cynical, but sometimes I look at my DVD collection and see 50 copies of the same movie. Explosions, love interest, conservative "twist" ending, cut! Revolver may be just as derivative of 1970's flicks as the explosion fests of the 21st century are today, but for some reason it was refreshing to watch. I can't see anyone lavishing "rabid fanboy" praise on it, but Revolver was enjoyable, moving at times, and had two great performances. If you thirst for a change of pace, but want to retain the comfortable action standbys of guns and violence, Revolver may be right up your alley. The fantastic extras don't hurt either.

Rating:
Summary: Solid!
Review: Oliver Reed is very good - even if he doesn't dub his own voice here. (Still waiting for an uncut, widescreen US release of 'The Devils'.) Fabio Testi also holds his own, if you can overlook the voice actor's mediocre performance. (If Jeremy Irons were a pretty-boy matinee idol he'd look just like Fabio Testi. Check him out in 'What Have You Done to Solange?' - an EXCELLENT giallo.)The Morricone score is wonderful as always, and the cinematography is great. Some may not be able to get past certain elements that come with the territory with these Italian ones. (The dubbing, for instance.) Too bad for them. These movies are actually cinematic - while Hollywood movies have become big TV. There are no jarring elements or rough edges - no risk, nothing new, nothing of real interest. That's why I stopped going. Or maybe I'm just getting old. I like the atmospherics, the stylish grace notes and the willingness to risk offence - the charming moments of (probably) unintentional humor that one encounters don't shut me down for the movie. And in Italian cinema the adherence to a formula is often liberating in the particulars. "Suspiria", for example, had a plot that could have been written by a six year old - ... For all the familiar genre moves - that movie doesn't look like any other movie ever.

This is a well-paced, character driven actioner with an extra dimension of humanity that one might not expect - credit director Sergio Sollima for that. In most current American action movies the hero is pretty much invincible, and if anyone dies the movie barely notices - not that you'd care, anyway. This leaves endless scenes of explosions - servicably photographed from multiple angles so they will cut with the hyper-MTV editing that is supposed to trick the audience into thinking that something is actually going on on the screen. Its like watching an oversized video game that you're not allowed to play yourself. I'd fall asleep if these things weren't so noisy.

'Revolver' seems to take place in a different universe. People don't just disappear the moment they die, as if they never existed. They may be given an elgaic send-off or haunt the movie later with the reprecussions of their passing. In one scene a bleeding bystander, who really means nothing to the story, begs for help before the main characters and the movie leave him to expire in the street. As cold as that sounds, its not nearly as cold as the grand-scale bloodless Hollywood meyhem that passes for entertainment and doesn't seem to offend anyone. I'm making more out of it than the movie itself does - but entertainment that acknowledges the negative effects that violence has on human life is just about unheard of these days. This made 'Revolver' stand out for me.

That said, this IS just an engaging thriller that fulfills it's modest ambitions and leaves you feeling satisfied. Its not any more believable than others of its ilk, and its not trying to change anyone's life. Its just a movie - but actual movies are rare these days.

Rating:
Summary: Ollie goes over the top
Review: Sergio Sollima's 1975 crime thriller "Revolver," also known by its U.S. title "Blood in the Streets," stars the immensely watchable Oliver Reed and Italian low budget film veteran Fabio Testi. "Revolver" is an entry in the somewhat obscure Italian crime drama genre. Just as many Italian directors--including the likes of Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi--threw their hats into the cannibal and zombie genres, they jumped equally fast at the opportunity to make a movie about cops on the edge moving in a corrupt world filled with conspiracies, car chases and crashes, and bloody shootouts. Fulci's "Contraband," in some respects, falls under this rubric. Lenzi made a bunch of these potboilers, including "Violent Protection" and "Tough Cop," among others. I can't wait to see more of these films, but it appears the DVD revolution has been slow to recognize these low budget epics. It's surprising in a way that most of the gore drenched Italian flicks receive special edition treatment from companies like Anchor Bay and Blue Underground while these gritty urban thrillers lie dissolving in a vault somewhere. Until the day I see a boxed set of these movies sitting on a store shelf, I shall have to watch the few I can get my hands on. And that translates into Sollima's "Revolver."

It's a good movie albeit slightly confusing as the action progresses. Sollima starts us out with the assassination of a high-level oil executive and a seemingly unrelated bank robbery that results in the death of Milo Ruiz's (Fabio Testi) partner. Ruiz heads off to prison for his crimes, a prison run by none other than Vito Cipriani (Oliver Reed), a no nonsense, profane former cop who is an even tougher warden. We learn what a tough guy Vito is when an inmate threatens to kill himself with a knife. While the prison staff cowers in fear outside the room, Cipriani wraps his coat around his arm and strolls right in to confront the criminal. Sadly, he talks the guy out of the knife without beating him to a bloody pulp. Vito's home life is a bit less tempestuous thanks to the calming influence of his pretty young wife Anna (Agostina Belli). But wouldn't you know it? The movie is just starting when someone phones Vito and announces that he kidnapped Anna. If Cipriani wants his wife back, he has to release Milo Ruiz from jail with no questions asked. This Vito does in a rather convoluted way, but he's right outside the prison in his car when Ruiz comes bouncing down the street. The warden essentially kidnaps his charge, figuring that he'll find out where his wife is if he keeps Milo in sight.

The two don't like each other at first. Cipriani doesn't believe Ruiz when he says he has no idea why someone would stage a kidnapping to spring lowly old him from the stir. Milo disapproves of Vito's foul language and tendency to mete out a beating whenever he feels like it, usually to Milo. But something happens as the facts behind Anna Cipriani's abduction come to the fore: Milo Ruiz begins to admire Vito's determination to find his wife, and he soon pledges to do whatever is necessary to track down the men responsible. What follows are several dangerous situations, including a daring attempt to cross the border into France, a shootout in the street that leaves several people dead, and the duplicity of Ruiz's musician friend Al Niko (Daniel Beretta). As Milo and Vito come closer and closer to the men responsible for taking Anna away, the plot becomes even more byzantine. We learn about some huge government conspiracy linking the assassination of the oil minister and Ruiz's robbery, and we also learn that these guys will stop at nothing to protect their interests. They eventually present Vito Cipriani with a painful ultimatum that will free his wife if he performs an assassination of his own. The warden's final choice is a real surprise and definitely something different than what we usually see in a Hollywood film.

One thing I disliked about "Revolver" was the convoluted plot. Every ten minutes or so I kept having to ask myself exactly what was going on. The whole story seemed unnecessarily complex considering how easy it would have been for the conspirators to simply knock off Milo Ruiz in his jail cell. All we hear about in the latter part of the film is how powerful and wide ranging this cabal is, how governments and police agencies are members, yet we should believe that they can't pay a lowly inmate to hit someone? A further problem with the film involves the bloodlessness of the whole affair. A couple of quick shootouts and some beatings are always fun, but why the filmmakers stopped at a couple when they could have put in a dozen or more is beyond me. Fortunately, both lead actors do a good job with their roles. Especially Reed, who stomps through each scene like an angry 400-pound gorilla. He pummels people, he threatens people, and he swears at people every chance he gets. Throw in an interesting prog rock score by Ennio Morricone, and "Revolver" is a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

Supplements on the disc include two trailers for the film, radio spots, an easter egg, stills, cast biographies, and two interviews with Sollima and Testi. Both director and actor spend an inordinate amount of time describing the interesting experience of working with Oliver Reed, an actor known for his rages and his alcoholism. Testi claims that Reed once ate broken light bulbs during a drunken binge, and Sollima claims he shot all of the actor's scenes in the morning before drink turned him into a raging bully. Give "Revolver" a shot if anything above sounds remotely interesting to you.