Crime against cinema

I'll tell you what I think. I think you decided to do something in the way of a gangster movie that was a bit more weighty than Lock, Stock and Snatch, and accordingly sat down and perused such films as The Usual Suspects and Mr Tarantino's oeuvre, perhaps even some of Luc Besson's.

Then you took this story about a petty conman and crook (casting Jason Statham) who seeks revenge upon a much bigger mobster (Ray Liotta, resplendent, at least, in jockey briefs), and jazzed it up with décor that looks like it came straight from Las Vegas via the court of Louis the Sun King along with dialogue of a philosophical bent that would give the leading philosophers of his day severe indigestion.

You also decided, probably in the cutting room, to keep every little thing you shot, so that the film seems very much longer than the almost two hours that it runs. Am I right?

If there is a message in this at times almost incomprehensible tale, which goes backwards and forwards in time like a particularly confusing nightmare, it is that Mr Statham's conman is fighting himself as much as the stagy thugs who surround him with evil intent.

As the film says, your enemy will always hide in the last place that you would ever look - in your own head. I have to tell you that my own head was splitting by the time Revolver ended and I limped out into Leicester Square.

Could it be that you are playing a dastardly trick on us all? That Revolver is an elaborate joke? Or have you really just shot yourself painfully in the foot? If the latter, I do hope that you recover soon. I'm not sure that I will. Love to Madge.

Revolver
Cert: cert15