From the latter 1980s into the early 1990s, actor Kevin Costner seemed to lead a relatively charmed professional life, appearing in such popular films as Silverado, The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK and his Oscar-winning spectacle Dances With Wolves, before tanking and never really quite recovering from Waterworld. In the midst of this success stands a little-seen "action" film called Revenge, which came and went very quickly and won over neither critics nor viewers, before being forgotten in light of DWW's success later that same year.
The film centers on former Navy pilot Costner who, for some reason, thinks it is a great idea to take a vacation at the palatial estate of an organized crimelord (Anthony Quinn), who he once transported on a hunting trip, or some such rubbish. It does not take long to see where the predictable film is going when we are introduced to Quinn's much-younger wife, Madeleine Stowe. Before you know it, Costner and Stowe are having quickies in the closet, while Quinn is doing solo lambadas on the dance floor at his estate. It does not take long for Quinn's minions to be dispatched to beat up Costner to near death and kidnap/brutalize Stowe, and then...well, quite frankly, most discerning viewers won't care.
To say that the film's pace is stillborn would be complimentary. It has little in the way of surprises and trudges very slowly from point A to point B. Pretty much every character is unlikable and unsavory in some capacity. For a torrid liaison that "cannot be denied" as the posters heralded, the chemistry between Costner and Stowe is nearly non-existent and not helped at all by director Tony Scott's glossy, Calvin Klein-inspired love scenes. Worse, the film is entirely too long and convoluted for such a simplistic core story. It goes without saying before the lights dim that Costner and Stowe will fall into lust and Quinn will vent his wrath, but this takes a huge amount of film time to happen.
The latter portion of the picture is downright laughable and ultimately pointless. After Costner is beaten and left to die (one presumes), he recovers, hooks up with an entirely new set of characters in the latter third of the film and sets about to ostensibly get revenge on Quinn. The introduction of a gaggle of new people out of the blue is a bit jarring, especially since they are more interesting and well-played by character actors like Miguel Ferrer and Sally Kirkland than were any of their predecessors. Once Costner crashes Quinn's estate, instead of a mano a mano, they basically stare intently at each other before Costner apologizes for shtupping his wife and the satisfied Quinn sends him off to find her dying in a mountain nunnery still clutching a keepsake of his.
The entire endeavor is filmed with precious little in the way of action and conveyed with the solemnity one usually saves for eulogies. Aside from Ferrer and Kirkland who manage to make much of little in the very latter portion of the film, this is no ones finest acting hour. Stowe is particularly dreadful. Shoe-horned into costumes so tight that one fears bodily harm was done to the actress, she spends the majority of the film either semi-conscious or demonstrating the emotive abilities of a mannequin. I honestly did not think that the woman could act until seeing some of her subsequent work. And truthfully, if her character was so compelled to have a child that she would face death and dally with the next agreeable man to cross her sight, why on earth did she marry someone as old as Quinn, who has no interest to father a child, to begin with? Quinn trots out the old nutshell of the macho Latin crime boss with almost no deviations. Quinn has played similar roles numerous times and this time is particularly nothing special. Hopefully he was well paid. By contrast, Costner cannot be accused of not throwing himself into the part. He had become synonymous at the time with upstanding American heroes, so it must have seemed a coup to play someone a bit shady and unethical. He gets to wear the kind of beaten-up makeup that looks like your eyes are fried eggs and briefly flashes his well-toned derriere (the only high point of the film). Unfortunately, there is nary a breath of humor to his acting here and he takes things so seriously that one would think he was appearing in a Shakespearean tragedy rather than a lurid, low-rent potboiler.
Revenge is the kind of film that is impossible to recommend to anyone unless you especially despise that person. By the time one has slogged through the whole mess to its ludicrous downbeat climax, Stowe's fate seems rather tame by comparison.
The film centers on former Navy pilot Costner who, for some reason, thinks it is a great idea to take a vacation at the palatial estate of an organized crimelord (Anthony Quinn), who he once transported on a hunting trip, or some such rubbish. It does not take long to see where the predictable film is going when we are introduced to Quinn's much-younger wife, Madeleine Stowe. Before you know it, Costner and Stowe are having quickies in the closet, while Quinn is doing solo lambadas on the dance floor at his estate. It does not take long for Quinn's minions to be dispatched to beat up Costner to near death and kidnap/brutalize Stowe, and then...well, quite frankly, most discerning viewers won't care.
To say that the film's pace is stillborn would be complimentary. It has little in the way of surprises and trudges very slowly from point A to point B. Pretty much every character is unlikable and unsavory in some capacity. For a torrid liaison that "cannot be denied" as the posters heralded, the chemistry between Costner and Stowe is nearly non-existent and not helped at all by director Tony Scott's glossy, Calvin Klein-inspired love scenes. Worse, the film is entirely too long and convoluted for such a simplistic core story. It goes without saying before the lights dim that Costner and Stowe will fall into lust and Quinn will vent his wrath, but this takes a huge amount of film time to happen.
The latter portion of the picture is downright laughable and ultimately pointless. After Costner is beaten and left to die (one presumes), he recovers, hooks up with an entirely new set of characters in the latter third of the film and sets about to ostensibly get revenge on Quinn. The introduction of a gaggle of new people out of the blue is a bit jarring, especially since they are more interesting and well-played by character actors like Miguel Ferrer and Sally Kirkland than were any of their predecessors. Once Costner crashes Quinn's estate, instead of a mano a mano, they basically stare intently at each other before Costner apologizes for shtupping his wife and the satisfied Quinn sends him off to find her dying in a mountain nunnery still clutching a keepsake of his.
The entire endeavor is filmed with precious little in the way of action and conveyed with the solemnity one usually saves for eulogies. Aside from Ferrer and Kirkland who manage to make much of little in the very latter portion of the film, this is no ones finest acting hour. Stowe is particularly dreadful. Shoe-horned into costumes so tight that one fears bodily harm was done to the actress, she spends the majority of the film either semi-conscious or demonstrating the emotive abilities of a mannequin. I honestly did not think that the woman could act until seeing some of her subsequent work. And truthfully, if her character was so compelled to have a child that she would face death and dally with the next agreeable man to cross her sight, why on earth did she marry someone as old as Quinn, who has no interest to father a child, to begin with? Quinn trots out the old nutshell of the macho Latin crime boss with almost no deviations. Quinn has played similar roles numerous times and this time is particularly nothing special. Hopefully he was well paid. By contrast, Costner cannot be accused of not throwing himself into the part. He had become synonymous at the time with upstanding American heroes, so it must have seemed a coup to play someone a bit shady and unethical. He gets to wear the kind of beaten-up makeup that looks like your eyes are fried eggs and briefly flashes his well-toned derriere (the only high point of the film). Unfortunately, there is nary a breath of humor to his acting here and he takes things so seriously that one would think he was appearing in a Shakespearean tragedy rather than a lurid, low-rent potboiler.
Revenge is the kind of film that is impossible to recommend to anyone unless you especially despise that person. By the time one has slogged through the whole mess to its ludicrous downbeat climax, Stowe's fate seems rather tame by comparison.