Plot
Gambler Jake Green enters into a game with potentially deadly consequences.
Release Year: 2005
Rating: 6.3/10 (41,888 voted)
Critic's Score: 25/100
Director:
Guy Ritchie
Stars: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore
Storyline After seven years in solitary, Jake Green is released from prison. In the next two years, he amasses a lot of money by gambling. He's ready to seek his revenge on Dorothy (Mr. D) Macha, a violence-prone casino owner who sent Jake to prison. He humiliates Macha in front of Macha's lieutenants, leaves, and keels over. Doctors tell him he has a rare disease and will die in three days; Macha also puts a hit out on him. Loan sharks, Zack and Avi, demand Jake's cash and complete fealty in return for protection. Jake complies, and through narration and flashbacks, we watch him through at least three days of schemes, danger, and redemption. Who is his greatest enemy?
Writers: Luc Besson, Guy Ritchie
Cast: Jason Statham
-
Jake Green
Ray Liotta
-
Dorothy Macha
Vincent Pastore
-
Zach
André Benjamin
-
Avi
Terence Maynard
-
French Paul
Andrew Howard
-
Billy
Mark Strong
-
Sorter
Francesca Annis
-
Lily Walker
Anjela Lauren Smith
-
Doreen
Elana Binysh
-
Rachel
Mem Ferda
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Macha's Goon
Shend
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Teddy (Billy's Bodyguard)
Bill Moody
-
Al
Stephen Walters
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Joe
Vincent Riotta
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Benny
Taglines:
Your mind will not accept a game this big
Opening Weekend: £882,814
(UK)
(25 September 2005)
(358 Screens)
Gross: $1,843,340
(Russia)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia: Mickey Rourke was offered a role, but turned it down to do
Domino.
Goofs:
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers):
The chess board in one scene is set up wrong as there is a black square in lower right hand corner.
Quotes:
[first lines]
Jake Green:
One thing I've learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there's always an opponent, and there's always a victim. The trick is to know when you're the latter, so you can become the former.
User Review
This film is good
Rating: 10/10
OK... this movie so far has been slated by critics and board-posters
alike (although playing devil's advocate you could suggest that critics
are often people who didn't make it for themselves as film-makers, and
board posters are often people who didn't make it for themselves as
critics) so I wanted to sit in Guy's corner with the magic sponge to
perhaps reach maybe a couple of the people who've decided not to see
the film based on how everybody seems to be looking down their
collective nose of approval at it.
The film's biggest flaw in earning wide support is how unexpectedly
complex it is. This has been described many times as as making the film
"inaccessible" to the viewer. The film's chronology is relatively
non-linear and the characters are used as not only a means of
storytelling but as a device for showing us the subtle (or not so
subtle) hints of bias we give things as we commit them to memory, IE.
Ray Liotta's character brandishing a gun saying the words "fear me" is
portrayed as both tragically pathetic (from Statham's POV) or
interrogating and bold (from Liotta's POV). This is but one example of
Ritchie's far more mature approach he has taken to film-making with
Revolver, we have a storyline which is pretty archetypal (the strong
but silent gritty anti-hero gets released from jail with a score to
settle but gets drawn inadvertently into a world of corruption... I
mean it's paint by numbers film noir here guys, all the way down to the
vague poetic choice of diction and the gritty voice-overs) but then Guy
has taken this framework to make a number of extremely philosophical
and complex points.
Take the scene where Jason Statham's character runs afoul of a car.
This throwaway sequence could have been emitted from the film and made
no difference to the story whatsoever... but Ritchie is making point
about how such little chance happenings such as receiving a phone call
can make the difference between life and death.
So the final act of the movie is pretty mind boggling, I'd be taking
the p*ss if I said I didn't spend the last 20 minutes or so of the film
turning to my date going "uh... wtf?"... but that is the shoddiest
reason to disregard a piece of art. It is far too easy to dislike
something because you find it hard to understand. And even easier to
say "well nobody else seemed to understand it so it must be a real turd
of a film!". In my humble opinion, Revolver is a stylish, complex and
mature piece of modern art which should be greeted with the same manner
we would give the work of the Saatchi Brothers. If we choose this
opportunity to collectively say "Ah sh*t, I wanted a film about a load
of bleeding' cockney gangsters in-nit loll... Guy Ritchie is a tit!"
then the day will come when film-makers are allowed only to make that
which is expected of them by shallow, crappy people. Just because Guy
made a name for himself with funny, cheeky cockney romps, doesn't mean
he can't be deep without being "pretentious". Funny people can be
thoughtful too.
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