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The Guy Richie Revolver DVD Review

By Prairie Miller

Promoted by writer/director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as a thinking man's crime thriller, the relentlessly bloody and grating high-decibel Revolver may best be compared to - if anything cerebral at all-a migraine headache. That is to say, if there's any mob racket in full swing here, it's the movie's racket assaulting you inside your head.

Jason Statham is Jake, an introspective ex-con gunning for a casino honcho (Ray Liotta) named Dorothy - I kid you not. And he is in turn setting up plans for a counterattack, when not screaming and parading around in an assortment of dainty skimpy drawers.

At the same time, Jake is hit with news that he's possibly terminal, So the dramatic tension, such as it is, boils down to a tossup whether Dorothy or bad genes will snuff him out first. There are also intermittent chess games between scenes of Jake's incessant inner, dreary macho monologues, and gangsters prancing around like homicidal matadors unusually impressed with themselves.

Ritchie has said that Revolver has redeeming social value because it brings violence into question while maybe channeling his own rage, watta Guy. Let's hope Madonna didn't drive him to it.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated R
one star
DVD Features: Commentary with Writer/Director Guy Ritchie and Editor James Herbert; The Concept: An Interview with Guy Ritchie & Editor, James Herbert; The Game: The Making of Revolver; Photo Gallery; Outtakes; Alternate Opening Sequence with Introduction by Guy Ritchie; Deleted and Extended Scenes; Alternate Ending; Revolver: Making the Music; Music Trailer.