Guy Ritchie's Revolver 2005 explains Luc Besson
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
I don't remember when was the last time I had watched a movie so strong that my mind literally cannot stop obsessing over it. Being on a Luc Besson marathon I discovered that there is a misunderstood film which Besson wrote together with Guy Ritchie, which was directed by Ritchie, which is called Revolver. The 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes, in my opinion is there just because the critics were literally too dumb, or too insecure, for this movie. Or because this is something the Ritchie and Besson literally wanted to achieve. If the film became a hit, or was well received critically, the message of the film would not have worked as well as it does. ↩ Reply
Before I started watching it, yesterday, I was very nervous. I was reviewing Luc Besson movies, some of which required deep psycho-sexual analysis of his personal life. Due to contents of those reviews I was banned from one Lemmy community that talks about movies, and a person from a different Lemmy / Piefed community was constantly harassing my other reviews, just because I dared to take Luc's relationship with Maïwenn Le Besco seriously. ↩ Reply
But then by the end of the Revolver, all this negativity, all this nervousness disappeared. As if this movie was somehow a therapy session. Therapy for me and as I will theorize in this review, probably a therapy for Luc Besson as well. ↩ Reply
From the very beginning you notice that the film is shot very strangely. It is of course a Guy Ritchie picture, and you have Guy Ritchie's cool direction on display, but why the chromakey? They had $27 million of budget and most of the film is people talking to each other ( maybe pointing a gun at each other ). There is a lot of this gangster tension bullshit in the movie. But all of that could be shot relatively simply, on a real location, without using too much of the money. ↩ Reply
Yet the film looks like it is shot almost entirely on a green-screen. The chroma-keyed backgrounds are rather obvious. And while critics would immediately jump at it and say that the film is shit because of something like that, I ( knowing the two directors involved in it, and knowing that they are not that dumb ) started asking myself: why would they do that? ↩ Reply
The film almost tries to archive this bad movie feeling. It is actively trying to be in this genre of films where the film is "bad" on purpose. And yet in the same time, you have the on point Ritchie direction, with very cool shots. And actors with a lot of charisma. ↩ Reply
I have to go over the plot of the film, in order to start my stupid theory about it. Now, on Wikipedia, the plot section has a warning saying "This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.". They used 16 dense paragraphs to just do the summary of what happens in the film. Because the film, quite frankly is insanely dense. It is probably one of the most riddled reddle movies I've ever seen. And I've seen every Christopher Nolan film. ↩ Reply
So the movie is based on this gang war between two big bosses in town. The bad guy boss ( or the boss we should not want to win ) is played by Ray Liotta ( who you may remember played the main character in Scorsese's Goodfellas ). And the good guy boss ( or the boss we want to win, or the main character of the film ) is played by Jason Statham with probably the most hair I've ever seen on the guy. Like he has borderline long hair in this movie. And is it still Jason Statham. ↩ Reply
I know that I'm completely losing my mind at this point probably, and what I gonna say will sound absolutely insane, but it almost feels like god himself wanted me to see this very movie. As in, I have long hair. And my name ( J.Y. Amihud ) starts with Jason. I know it is fucking stupid. But damn this makes me feel weird, especially because of the effect the film had on me. ↩ Reply
So Jason's ( Mr. Green ) goes into the Ray's casino place where he wins a lot of money. Which obviously pisses of Ray's character. They both know that both of them are crime bosses. And one is literally embarrassing the other by winning so much. ↩ Reply
We learn that this Mr. Green character has some sort of Epilepsy or something. And he is very scared of tight spaces ( like he will not go into an elevator ). Or at the very least, in the elevator, because he is so scared, he will feel embarrassed himself, because he knows people are looking at him and he is currently sweating for what seems to be no reason what so ever. ↩ Reply
During that initial casino encounter Vincent Pastore's character Zach and André 3000's character Avi approach him and tell him some cryptic bullshit. Something along the lines of: You fucked up, we can help. ↩ Reply
They give him a card, which he looks at and gets an Epileptic seizure from. He later learns that he has only a few days to live. And Zach and Avi pitch him a cure. But he needs to do anything they say for it to work, no matter how embarrassing it will be. At first he feels they are conning him, but then, out of desperation, he agrees to their stupid proposal. And the entire movie they pretty much use him for every god damned criminal bullshit that they could come up with. Using all his money, which they force him to hand over in person, to the people that they choose. They are basically slowly psychologically abusing him and making him feel the most embarrassment he ever felt in his life. ↩ Reply
There is a lot of very complex philosophical discussion of cons and games and chess strategies. And Avi character always plays chess with Mr. Green. Where Mr. Green always beats him. They discuss how he wins all the time. And he spills out his strategy of simple deception. Simple emotional manipulation, making the other player feel he is smart. Giving him his pieces, so he would feel like he is winning. Which makes him sloppy. ↩ Reply
Yet in the same time this Mr. Green character is literally giving control over himself fully to the two motherfuckers ( which he just thinks are good con artists ). In a way his, psychological defense mechanism plays a trick on him. He believes that he lets these two motherfuckers believe that he lets them take advantage of him, while he is the one that cons them. Somehow. He didn't quite figured out how yet. But somehow he is using his chess technique on Zach and Avi. ↩ Reply
Somehow this embarrassment therapy makes his Epilepsy ( and his "few days to live" condition ) go away. Which confuses the fuck out him. And even suggests that there might be some actual magic in the world of the film. I doubt that there is magic. Epilepsy is linked to Serotonin, which is very linked to psychology. So a good therapy can reduce Epilepsy ( at least in theory ). And Zach and Avi seem to be very good when it comes to human psychology. ↩ Reply
While they use him, they also do a bunch of crime ( in which they involve him ). And this bunch of crime all targets the Ray Liotta character who's psychological state slowly deteriorates. He becomes nervous and then maniacal. And then utterly broken, by the end. All due to Zach, Avi and Mr. Green robbing him over and over again. ↩ Reply
Ray Liotta character becomes so desperate that he literally wants to kill everyone even remotely involved with this Mr. Green guy, to teach Mr. Green how to respect him. He is oblivious to Zach and Avi. That is when Zack and Avi give Mr. Green the final embarrassment therapy mission. He needs to go to Ray Liotta's character, apologize like a slave, and then take the elevator back down from him. ↩ Reply
Throughout the whole film you can hear the main character's thoughts as a kind of fun voice-over thing. And then by the end the character is literally fighting this voice. Literally having a whole argument with this voice. This voice is absolutely pissed at him for letting Zach and Avi embarrass him so much. And yet he still apologizes to the boss, which drives the voice mad, and he still takes the elevator, despite the voice having the hardest of protests against it. ↩ Reply
In the elevator, the worst fear of Mr. Green comes true. He gets stuck. And the voice becomes so motherfucking insane, we actually start seeing him. Obviously both Mr. Green and Mr. Green's voice are played by Jason Statham. And he is acting his ass off. Best acting I've ever seen from Jason Statham. ↩ Reply
By the time the elevator starts to work again and Mr. Green gets out of the elevator. He had defeated his voice fully and took it entirely under his control. That is when he meets an absolutely pissed Ray Liotta character. He is pissed at the chutzpah of Mr. Green. He robs him multiple times. Makes a fool of him. And then decides to simply come and apologize? What the fuck? So it is Ray Liotta's turn to act his ass off in that scene. Trying to be imposing and scary, but actually being worthless and pathetic. Which drives him to tears. He demands Mr. Green to "fear him". But Mr. Green giving 0 fucks, just walks away, completely calm. The end. ↩ Reply
During credits ( to hammer down the point of the movie ) there is footage of various psychology professors talking about the idea of Ego. And how destructive Ego can be on both the mind and the person as a whole. That gives a certain reading to the film. Mr. Green being Egotistical fucked up in the beginning of the movie. He came to Ray Liotta character's casino to assert his dominance. Out of his Ego. And in the process triggered the Ego of Ray Liotta's character. Zack and Avi then helped him out by totally destroying Ray Liotta's character ( using his Ego against him ) while curing Mr. Green from his Ego. Making him a more rational and ultimately calm human being by the end of the film. ↩ Reply
But it goes even deeper. Guy Ritchie is known to be Jewish. And as he was developing the film Revolver he was actively learning as much as he could about Jewish tradition. Specifically about קבלה ( Kabalah ). Which is believed to be a form of Jewish magic, of sorts. But based on what I know, it is more like Jewish psychology. It is kind of like a religious coated form of psycho-analytical knowledge. ↩ Reply
Growing up in Chabad I personally went through learning a particular religious text ( from the realm of Kabalah ) called תניא ( Tanya ) which is something between philosophy and psychology. This book in particular is not something most people think, when they think of Kabalah. Most of them think of something like זהר ( Zohar ). But it is good enough to read the movie at least partially. ( By the way I have an outlandish thing when it comes to Zohar, which I want to talk to you about a bit later in the review. So stay tuned ). ↩ Reply
The book rather quickly separates Jewish people into 3 categories. The saints, or those who don't even think of doing sins, the middles, who think of doing sins, but never do them, and the bad motherfuckers, who do sins. And it explains the categories by stating that every single mind contains what's called יצר הטוב ( Yetzer HaTov, or the good part ) and יצר הרע ( Yetzer HaRa, or the bad part ). Yetrzer HaTov is the thing that keeps you from doing sins. And Yetzer HaRa is literally the voice that makes you think of sins. The middles ignore that voice. And the saints don't even have it. ↩ Reply
In Freudian ( who was Jewish by the way ) psychology there is Id, Ego and Superego, which is a slightly more complex development from those same ideas. ↩ Reply
The Good Part is kind of like the rational brain that does proper decisions. And the Bad Part is like the Ego in the movie Revolver. Or the voice that keeps fucking shit up because it wants to keep you from embarrassment. ↩ Reply
The whole movie is filled with little nods and small references to Jewish tradition. Even the names Zach and Avi appear to have meanings related to Kabalah. ↩ Reply
If you ever have a change to learn any of these texts with a proper Rabbi, you quickly understand that over-analyzing everything is kind of the point. The books are specifically written with over-analyzing of them in mind. And therefor something like Revolver which is a cinematic manifestation of these books, should be so complex and utterly filled with detail, that makes it very attractive to people who want to over-analyze it. ↩ Reply
Now let's do just that. Let's over-analyze Revolver and in the same time the people who made the film, to get to some conclusion. And let's do it properly. Let's go so far, that it looses any resemblance of sanity. Let's literally conciser the film being sent from god. And let's even consider that it was made specifically for me to watch specifically yesterday, to calm the specific nerves that I specifically needed to calm. I mean what if not a over-analysis of Ego, it will be, to Egotistically weave yourself into the damn thing. So let's go. ↩ Reply
The nerves I had were caused by the negative reactions to my review of The Fifth Element, where I argued that it is the most tragic film in Luc Besson's career. ( I also had nerves from work. Because I was fighting with the directors over their own illogicality. Long story, but maybe it is also somewhat related ). ↩ Reply
In that review, which is what people found to be so appalling, was my argument that Luc Besson was actually really in love with Maïwenn Le Besco. Who he married when she was 15. And who he had a child with when she was 16. People immediately jumped at me for "pedophilia advocacy" and one Lemmy community even banned me for it for good. ↩ Reply
To prove my theory that Besson and Le Besco were in love I used a story from my personal live, of a girl who had a relationship with a man older than her. And who I observed to be totally and utterly in love with said man. Which, in my opinion, was the reason that she succeeded at stopping the legal system from attacking their relationship. ↩ Reply
My argument was something along the lines of that. Most pedophiles go to jail because it is abuse. But sometimes there is such a strong opposition from the kid, that the pedophile doesn't go to jail. Which just proves that in that particular case, maybe, there isn't any actual abuse happening what's so ever. Otherwise why would the child rebel so hardly against the law? ↩ Reply
I think the review was read on a surface level, by skimming or something, and that little nuance was totally missed by the readers. Which resulted in the ban and in some of the readers rebelling against my other reviews. ↩ Reply
Now that girl that I know ( who had children from a guy older than her ) actually worked with me on a movie. She and I together came up with an anti-ageism film called Moria's Race. And her second name is... Zohar! ↩ Reply
Do you feel the creepy bullshito-meter starts climbing? This is some absolutely magnificent bullshit. ↩ Reply
And because I know Zohar fought the courts and the legal system like crazy to save her motherfucker ( Shlomo ) from prison. I can assume that something similar must have happened to Luc Besson and Maïwenn Le Besco, because Besson didn't go to prison over Le Besco. Instead they got married. ↩ Reply
Think about how I feel that Besson is teaming up with Ritchie to make a Kabalah movie. Where Zohar is one of the most known Kabalah books out there. The bullshito-meter is like peaking. And the same movie also has Jason Statham with long hair. Like this is some absolute gold of coincidences. ↩ Reply
So in that same review of The Fifth Element I presumed that the only two times Besson actually was in love, was with Le Besco and with his current wife, Virginie Besson-Silla ( who coincidentally is also a producer on Revolver ). ↩ Reply
And that his other two wives, specifically Milla Jovovich who dumped him only 2 years after they were married, is a manifestation of Besson's pussy curse. As in, some sort of perverse problem in his head made him switch-on into the direction of Jovovich, while being in love with Le Besco and making a fucking movie about love. For fuck sake. ↩ Reply
Then when Jovovich dumped him ( in 1999 ) Besson was depressed. It is even reflected in his professional life. He didn't direct anything until 2005. And in 2004 he was already married to Virginie. And between 1999 to 2004 there was no wife and no nothing. Besson was literally at his lowest time. ↩ Reply
He realized what a fucking loser he is by dumping the love of his life, with whom he probably survived a hell of a legal battle, Maïwenn Le Besco. And for whom? For some hot babe that didn't even think he was good enough. For some Jovovich who dumped him almost immediately. ↩ Reply
He was probably stupidly embarrassed to show his face anywhere in public. He was embarrassed to live. So he didn't see women. And he didn't direct anything. How can he show up on a stage if he fucked up so fucking hard? How can he assert his vision with confidence, when his pussy curse made him lose the love of his life? ↩ Reply
In the meantime Guy Ritchie makes movies. He makes the 1998 film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels which leads him into making a rather bigger film in the same genre, the 2000's movie Snatch. As I speculated in my review of Gone in 60 Seconds, people like Jerry Bruckheimer start paying attention to him. And he even marries Madonna. ↩ Reply
A few year later, probably starstruck by love, he casts Madonna in his 2002 film Swept Away which tanks at the box office and becomes the worst rated film in Ritchie's career. ( Only mere 9% on Rotten Tomatoes ). ↩ Reply
Both Ritchie and Besson are now depressed. And both Ritchie and Besson are in search for some enlightenment. For some therapy. And Ritchie being Jewish finds it in Jewish teachings. ↩ Reply
For Guy Ritchie this Yetzer HaRa or Ego is the exact problem he feels like shit. He made two very good movies that were well received. Now he made a stinker. It hurts. And it hurts due to Ego. ↩ Reply
For Besson, the Ego, or the Yetzer HaRa is his pussy-curse. It is the reason he doesn't want to show himself in public. It is the reason he isn't dating anyone. He is too embarrassed from what happened with Le Besco and Jovovich. ↩ Reply
So those two men come to a realization that they need to clean themselves from their Egos. Clean themselves from this Yetzer HaRa. Make themselves better people by caring less about what people say. And ultimately it might as well help Besson with his pussy curse. ↩ Reply
In 2004 Besson marries again. Probably because of this therapy. Probably because this Kabalah thing actually fucking helped him. And by 2005 he and Ritchie make a movie about it. A movie that is designed to do that same very thing. To help people defeat their own Egos. ↩ Reply
Guy Ritchie who always did films on his own ( he was the sole writer on all of his previous films ) understands that it would be too Egotistical for him to do the same here. So he does it together with Luc Besson. ↩ Reply
There is only one problem. They both understand the problem. And they decided that they want to do something about it. ↩ Reply
In 1997 a fella by the name of James Cameron wins a lot of Oscars and makes a hell of a lot of money by making Titanic a movie that is supposed to be about class differences. And that shows rich people as bad motherfuckers. Yet in the same time, this movie makes Cameron a rich person. Something about this doesn't feel right. ↩ Reply
Luc Besson and Guy Ritchie decide that they will make their Revolver movie intentionally terrible. So that it will tank at the box office and so critics will give it bad reviews. While actually making a very good movie. This would be their ultimate Ego test. This would be their ending scene in the Elevator, where they would confront their Egos fully... ↩ Reply
Luc Besson lived with Virginie Besson-Silla already for 21 years. Guy Ritchie makes good films regularly. I am calm now. ↩ Reply
The bullshito-meter has exploded from the shier speculatory nonsense of this review. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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c:0So you were educated in Kabbalah. I guess 5 years ago or so when I asked you, just forgot.
Still, this review worked like therapy for me as well. After some mathematics, reading a movie review with an actual plot interwoven, is a surreal experience!
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