Mr. Ritchie dilutes his snazzy action set pieces with metaphysical symbolism and aphorisms from “Julius Caesar,” “The Fundamentals of Chess,” “The Book of Suicide,” and other mismatched texts to convey some big ideas about the ego.

| Apr 21, 2023

Its central chess-game conceit is over-convoluted and infuriating, finally sliding into risible silliness in the last 20 minutes.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 26, 2019

An often astonishingly incoherent trainwreck...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 20, 2018

Incoherent.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 11, 2016

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 16, 2011

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 16, 2011

An unwieldy, short-circuiting film, packing "more tricks than a clown's pocket" yet imbued with brute spiritual force

| Aug 27, 2009

Jesus, this is a stupid movie.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 6, 2009

[A]bout as compelling a brief for Kabbalah as Battlefield Earth was for scientology.

| Sep 22, 2008

It's not worth the bother.

| Apr 3, 2008

Like De Palma before him, Ritchie knows how to express substance through style.

| Mar 15, 2008

... given Ritchie's penchant for flashy, in-your-face twists, we trust all will be revealed in good time. But as "Revolver" rolls on -- and on and on and on -- it becomes painfully apparent that Ritchie's firing blanks.

| Original Score: D+ | Jan 4, 2008

Ritchie has packed Revolver with so much 'substance' that it completely overwhelms his still somewhat charming style.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 3, 2008

If I understand the ending properly, [this] is an infomercial for one or another school of New Age-y psychology/philosophy. ... a touchy-feely ultraviolent gangster flick. Come over here and give Scarface a hug, you big gruff pussycat.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2007

Not the disaster described in the British press but unlikely to restore Ritchie's luster.

| Original Score: 2 | Dec 17, 2007

Revolver is bat**** crazy, and I mean that as a high compliment.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2007

The plot isn't intellectually challenging as much as it is confusing, and yet the big twist is completely telegraphed. Ritchie has created a movie that is patronizingly obvious one minute and impenetrable the next.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 14, 2007

And I mean it when I say the rest of this thing is a nonsensical mess. An absurd combination of Stanley Kubrick, Robert Siodmak and Roger Corman, this film can't decide what it is or what it wants to be.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 10, 2007

Creepy and mysterious as The Usual Suspects, unseen forces and cryptic messages pit men against themselves in one of the darkest and best action-thrillers of the year.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 9, 2007

Pretentious and not half as clever as it thinks it is.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 7, 2007