Revolver.

"The press materials for Revolver include an interview with [Guy] Ritchie in which he explains how to con people," writes Matt Singer at IFC News. "'Feed them an opinion of themselves that makes them feel superior in someway,' he instructs. 'Make them feel clever, special or attractive.' Revolver's empty style, empty enlightenment, and empty story all suggest Ritchie pulled his ultimate con on himself. What kind of movie sits on the shelf for two years before its theatrical release? This kind."

And Aaron Hillis talks with Ritchie.

Updated through 12/7.

Nick Schager in Slant: "Having perfected the art of British-accented Tarantino mimicry, Ritchie here takes a different course, pushing the gangster film into gobbledygook abstraction that, via some end-credit sound bites from supposed philosophers, eventually reveals itself to be a guns-and-nudity version of What the Bleep Do We Know!?"

"[A]t times, I halfway admired the suicidal gambit of making such a gnomic self-actualization gangster pic," admits Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. But...

In the LA CityBeat, Andy Klein blames Madonna. Not really, of course. "There are plenty of ways to turn empty-headed that don't involve the multi-talented M or her mighty mojo. And Ritchie's tumble here is a bit more complicated."

Updates, 12/7: "Guy Ritchie single-handedly revived cockney cool with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch," Martin Tsai reminds us in the New York Sun. "But despite all the con men, thugs, assassins, guns, and drugs at play, Revolver is something else entirely."

Here's "film that's main crime is inducing stupefying boredom with little payoff in the end," writes Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times.

"[T]he movie clearly has so much more on its mind than escapism that viewers may demand, 'Who is this director, and what has he done with Guy Ritchie?'" writes Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times, where he also notes that Revolver "doesn't stint on fun."

Posted by dwhudson at December 6, 2007 7:46 AM