Flashback: Revenge

A bleak, violent, sexy-as-hell thriller, Revenge is one of Tony Scott‘s true masterpieces (…) a brutal revenge tale that feels, in many superficial and spiritual ways, like Scott’s lone Western. Scott has an unflinching eye when it comes to both sexuality and violence, which turned off a lot of viewers when it was initially released (and befuddled the film’s producers). In the years since, Scott has constructed a more streamlined «Director’s cut» for home video, which, surprisingly, comes in at about 20 minutes shorter than the theatrical exhibition. There are a number of reasons to watch and adore Revenge, from Costner’s conflicted performance to Jack Nitzsche’s score and the sun-bleached cinematography from Jeffrey Kimball. Revenge is Tony Scott’s most mournful and humane story, a film that is stylistically admirable but, above all else, emotionally engaging. The fearlessness with which Scott stages the film’s finale will leave you breathless; an unheralded masterwork and the most compelling argument against stuck up cineastes who claim the director is «just some flashy hack.»

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