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Revenge made me think one important question: Remember when Quentin Tarantino used to make great films? For me, it’s been almost ten years, as Inglourious Basterds was that film for me, and before that, Jackie Brown.
So, step forward writer/director Coralie Fargeat taking a literal shot at the crown with this much more engaging ‘Roaring Rampage of Revenge’ as promised by Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies, both of which were far too long. This could also do with a bit of trimming, but what we do get has better pacing, better editing and better direction.
Mixing French and English dialogue, Richard (Kevin Janssens) and Jen (the insanely hot Matilda Lutz) enjoy a wild night in a posh apartment before he’s due to go off hunting with his friends, Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède), but the aftermath of a party leads to bad hangovers, frayed tempers and events getting way out of hand, and it’s the actions of one of the pair which leads to a situation where it’s her against all three men.
Revenge is not afraid to deliver some 18-certificate violence and gore that’s sorely missing from Hollywood today, as they’d rather dumb things down for a mainstream audience.
A particular scene around 33 minutes in is guaranteed to turn your stomach, as Jen suffers an injury about her person, but rest assured, she won’t be the only one to suffer.
With plenty of gorgeous visuals of the desert, all of the actors being on-point, and with the soundtrack having some neat synth music in it from time to time and this film is superbly well-directed, even if it is rather nonsense at times, but that’s what suspension of disbelief is all about when it comes to the movies.
The only downsides: Revenge is about 15 minutes too long, and nil points to whoever came up with the generic title. Sure, she’s been wronged and it’s a tale of revenge, but it’s also the name of a TV series and countless other movies.
Oh, and remember how the 2018 Tomb Raider movie sucked big time? Ms Lutz would’ve made a far better Lara Croft, and Ms Fargeat shows she’s one to watch for Hollywood!
And one observation which I would consider a spoiler if you’ve not yet seen this.
Revenge is released in cinemas and digital HD today, and is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on October 1st.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 108 minutes
Studio: Vertigo Releasing
Year: 2018
Format: 2.35:1 (35mm)
Released: September 7th 2018
Rating: 8.5/10
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Producers: Marc-Etienne Schwartz and Marc Stanimirovic
Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat
Music: Robin Coudert
Cast:
Jen: Matilda Lutz
Richard: Kevin Janssens
Stan: Vincent Colombe
Dimitri: Guillaume Bouchède
Roberto: Jean-Louis Tribes
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.