Gradually, one begins to suspect that this movie thinks it
has Something Important to Say and, unfortunately, it does. (A spoiler follows,
though trust me, this is something you’ll want to know before deciding to shell
out your eight bucks.) As the film progresses, Green’s homily-spouting
voiceover becomes ever more intrusive before ultimately blossoming into a
full-blown attack of schizophrenia in which he bickers, Gollum-like, with his own
dark side in a stopped elevator. The lesson, you see, is that his only real
enemy is his ego, and not the fellow with the gun waiting outside the elevator
to kill him.
And, indeed, when the doors open the anticipated showdown is
less climax than coda, as the newly enlightened Green strolls right past his
would-be assailant, who is paralyzed by his own insecurities. For viewers thick
(or incredulous) enough not to get the message, Ritchie helpfully provides, as
the credits roll, a series of brief psycho-spiritual testimonials in which
luminaries such as Leonard Jacobson and Deepak Chopra explain, “The ego is the
worst confidence trickster, because we don’t see it.”
Yes, in the end it turns out that this inept and peculiar
film has all been one long advertisement for Kabbalah. (For those in the know,
it is evidently packed with inside references: “Green,” for instance, is not
merely the protagonist’s surname, but apparently also a color associated with
the “central column” spiritual energies, or something like that.) Ritchie’s pitch
may prove persuasive to other megamillionaire pop-diva husbands with too much
time on their hands, but for the rest of us it’s about as compelling a brief
for Kabbalah as Battlefield Earth was
for scientology. Revolver is a
dreadful, dreadful movie, interesting only insofar as such glimpses into
terrible judgment sometimes are. My advice? Treat it like your ego, and don’t
see it.