Review of Revolver (2005) by Cognauticcreix — 11 Jan 2012

The best advice I can give to someone who didn't enjoy this movie is watch it once, then read about it, let it sit for a while, think about the conclusion, and then, watch it again. That being said...

I'm not surprised that this movie got terrible reviews. I don't agree with them, but I am truly not surprised, and in fact, it's almost to be expected. For a movie like this which is so steeped in philosophy and intellect which completely distances itself from typical cinema, the fact that a high profile director even made a movie like this is, to me, incredibly impressive. For the majority of the movie the plot is intentionally very secretive, releasing key elements to you one at a time, making allusions to the messages and feeding you pieces of the conclusion piece by piece until it all comes together in one big revelation in the final scene. Hell, even if you still didn't get it the movie gave you a damn documentary in the credits to try and help you along, which, apparently, only managed to piss off the viewers and make them think the movie was condescending. The directing's excellent, the key concepts masterfully pulled off, and the writing superb. In fact, the only thing that I could possibly say to critique this movie is that it's a little hard to comprehend first time around, and therein lies the key to it's failure.

This, while an excellent example of a very well written and interesting movie, as it turns out, is not a good idea for a successful blockbuster. The typical audience for movies with big budgets have a very, *very* short attention span, and when a movie isn't feeding them all the clues in a linear, easy to understand simple step by step feed, they get a little cranky and start thinking that the movie's insulting them, that it thinks it's smarter than them, and we all know it's hard to accept that you're the smartest person in the world. Of course, the immediate step by people who wish to rebuke their lack of understanding of the movie's convoluted plot (makes me think of the great amount of people who dislike anticon.) is to immediately throw out words like 'pretentious' which is a word ironically mostly used by those whom actually better fit the term than those who are most subjected to it. To say this movie is pretentious is, to put in literary terms, like saying "A Separate Peace" is pretentious. Well, not exactly because "A Separate Peace" is kind of pretentious, but the point is it's like saying that novels who strive to use metaphors and complicated plots which have powerful self-realizations at the ending instead of necessarily catering to Pulp Fictions.

*That's* what's wrong with Revolver, a cultural barrier that prevents movies who try to have writing on par with the greater literary works of our time are thrown away because they're too different, because they're judged on a different standard. The only reason Snow Falling on Cedars, for example, got so much acclaim is because it was already standing on the shoulders of a giant - the book it was based off of. Because it already had an extremely acclaimed novel already known for some literary depth to base it's writing off of it could stave off the ignorant masses' claims of "pretentiousness," for, had it been called such people could have just as easily pointed to the book as a reference and say, "See? It's right there, and you loved it, so why the hell does it suck in a movie?" I, personally, enjoyed this movie a lot, and you don't have to respect what I think about it's quality, you really don't, you can just move on and enjoy the movies you're going to watch, I mean, I also enjoy big budget blockbusters as well (well...not all)! But I think this movie has not been getting its proper due, so please, keep an open mind.