Some films make you feel good, some shed light on social issues, some are technical masterpieces. But regardless of all that, how many films directly make the world a better place? This is one of them. "Revanche" ("Revenge" or "Rematch") is broadly a crime thriller but it doesn't pander to our junk-food cravings for violence and cheap thrills. Instead it uses the guise of a crime thriller to tell a deeply human story which will, if you catch the message, make you a better person. And I don't mean that in a "remember to floss after every meal" kind of way. I mean it in a "you just learned something about your soul's redemption" kind of way.
I won't say diddly squat about the plot except to say it revolves around 4 characters: an amateur criminal in Vienna, his prostitute girlfriend, a young good-natured woman who lives in the country, and her husband who is a policeman. A brutal event impacts the lives of these 4 people, leading one of them on a mission of, you guessed it, "revanche".
Nothing is predictable, even though the story is perfectly composed in a way that will make you think it couldn't have happened any other way. The camera style is picturesque and slow, with many stationary, lingering shots as opposed to quick disorienting edits common in most crime thrillers. There is no music aside from an old man occasionally squeezing out a tune on an accordion. But it's incredibly suspenseful up to the very end.
A famous film figure (whom I forgot) once commented that all revenge flicks are nothing more than a 90 minute justification for 1 extreme act of violence. That's certainly true about every Steven Seagal flick I've ever seen, where it's expected that the audience will cheer rapturously at the end when a guy gets his eyeballs thumbed out before he's thrown down an elevator shaft only to land on a giant iron spike. "Revanche" is the antidote to those kinds of flicks. So if you ever feel like thumbing someone's eyeballs out, take a deep breath and watch this film instead.
I won't say diddly squat about the plot except to say it revolves around 4 characters: an amateur criminal in Vienna, his prostitute girlfriend, a young good-natured woman who lives in the country, and her husband who is a policeman. A brutal event impacts the lives of these 4 people, leading one of them on a mission of, you guessed it, "revanche".
Nothing is predictable, even though the story is perfectly composed in a way that will make you think it couldn't have happened any other way. The camera style is picturesque and slow, with many stationary, lingering shots as opposed to quick disorienting edits common in most crime thrillers. There is no music aside from an old man occasionally squeezing out a tune on an accordion. But it's incredibly suspenseful up to the very end.
A famous film figure (whom I forgot) once commented that all revenge flicks are nothing more than a 90 minute justification for 1 extreme act of violence. That's certainly true about every Steven Seagal flick I've ever seen, where it's expected that the audience will cheer rapturously at the end when a guy gets his eyeballs thumbed out before he's thrown down an elevator shaft only to land on a giant iron spike. "Revanche" is the antidote to those kinds of flicks. So if you ever feel like thumbing someone's eyeballs out, take a deep breath and watch this film instead.