Revolver (2005)

Directed by Guy Ritchie. Starring Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, André Benjamin, Vincent Pastore, Terence Maynard, Mark Strong, Andrew Howard, Tom Wu, Francesca Annis, Anjela Lauren Smith. [R]

Returning to his British crime picture forte after his failed vanity project with then-wife Madonna (Swept Away) seemed to be the wise move for director Ritchie, but then he unleashed this incoherent, self-indulgent mishmash of pseudo-intellectual aphorisms, semi-mystical riddles, and verbal flatulence. Statham is an ex-con with a vendetta against crime boss Liotta, and humiliates him by beating him at a game of chance in one of his casinos, making off with a big pile of cash—so far, so good, but it just gets worse and worse (…and worse) from there, to the point of infuriation. Punishes viewers with gimmicky visuals, frenetic narration, scenes stitched together by blink-and-you’ll-miss-them flashforwards and flashbacks, irresponsible use of queasy shaky-cam during the shoot-out/chase scenes, and enough psychobabble to fill two dozen New Age pamphlets (Ritchie was reportedly inspired by Kabbalah). Received so poorly at the time of its 2005 release in the UK, it took more than two years before it was recut and debuted stateside. As one would expect, Liotta, in all his gnashing, mad-dog glory, manages to rise above the dreck and emerge unscathed. The sort of movie that has characters holding up twelve-dollar bills as if it was perfectly normal; if this is what qualifies as “deep” in modern gangster dramas, then viva la nihilism.

18/100