Review: ‘Revanche’

REVANCHE, which is German for revenge, is a hard sell. An Austrian production, the film is in both German and Russian with tiny little white subtitles. The primary reason I start off by mentioning the subtitles is because a film as slow and generally uninteresting as REVANCHE is made even more difficult to appreciate by it’s often difficult to follow subtitles written in broken English.

Written and directed by Götz Spielmann, REVANCHE follows an ex-con named Alex (Johannes Krisch) as he plans a bank robbery he perceives as no fail. He intends to escape his insignificant life, running away with an attractive prostitute named Tamara (Irina Potapenko) who only wants to escape the sex business. Ironically, Alex has an unquenchable sex drive, but he cares deeply for Tamara and they get along well.

The initial obstacle for Alex and Tamara is her boss Konecny, a big hulking gorilla of a man who has big plans for Tamara. Plans of which she holds no interest in pursuing and becomes the final straw, convincing the lovers to finally flee their mutual misery. They are both at risk of Konecny’s wrath as Alex also has been working for him as a sort of bouncer and miscellaneous hired hand.

All Alex and Tamara need to do to begin their new lives together is to pull off this one simple bank robbery and their free. When the robbery unexpectedly goes terribly wrong, Alex finds himself distraught with guilt and anger, leading him to pursue a path of vengeance. A simultaneously occurring story involves police officer Robert (Andreas Lust) and his wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss) who recently miscarried the married couple’s first child. The couple are having a rough go at recovering from their recent trauma and their story gradually becomes intertwined with that of Alex and Tamara’s.

As if the 121-minute running time wasn’t enough to make time itself feel cruel, the film is shot in a washed out palette that features tan and gray as it’s recurring color scheme. There is nothing dynamic in REVANCHE to hold the viewers sleepy eyes, aside from the frequently exposed breasts of actresses Irina Potapenko and Ursula Strauss. Static shots, a straight-forward perspective and a complete lack of cinematic energy, the film does have an essence of realism, but not necessarily the realism that beckons paying movie-watchers to stumble over each other in line to experience. The film is grainy and often just a tad overexposed. There is a lack of concern for things such as lens flares in the film.

I suppose REVANCHE could be considered a more successful film by definition of some social commentary, but the recent trend with some European films to take on this approach has left me cautious in my viewing habits. The movie attempts to suggest some moral philosophy at work on Alex, the film’s focus, but instead merely conveys some basic emotions brought upon by his own actions as he must deal with the consequences. The second half of REVANCHE builds to a climax that never occurs, favoring a more open-ended conclusion.

REVANCHE is not entirely unworthy of praise. Despite the length and slow pace of the film and the largely understated cinematography, the film has a solid, competently written script and the acting is perfectly acceptable. The overall arc and concept of REVANCHE’s story is sound enough and, in all honesty, does pick up a bit at the one hour mark as Alex begins to formulate his revenge. In accordance with the slight change of pace and tone in the second half, the additional attention to lighting and contrast in the second half also helps this hour pass more fluidly than the first. Unfortunately, the tension and emotional power intended in the second half of REVANCHE is never fully realized and falls significantly flat of it’s potential.