The dialogue is loaded with clichés that the characters keep repeating, like an old 42 rpm record with a needle that won’t move.  Much of this schlock is delivered by Statham (later Liotta), as the heavy-handed narrator with pseudo-literary observations like “They’re as smart as a pair of little boy’s shoes” and “You’ve got more tricks than a clown’s pockets.”  His supposedly profound insights, delivered like Moses returning from Mt. Sinai (“In every con, there’s a winner and a victim”), are laughable.

The bigger problem, believe it or not, is that it’s an action movie—yet the plot is really about the importance of pondering life, which all the characters do.  That’s right.  Gangsters, including a hired assassin, talking about the conundrum of reality.  They ponder these issues in convoluted terms (“Is he me?  Or am I him?  Or am I merely myself?”), and without ever considering God.  In one of the few logical (though still absurd) scenes, a character tells Jake to “embrace the pain” and warns him that he’s “still in prison.”  Another can’t fire his weapon and keeps whispering, “Fear me.  Fear me.”  By the end of the film, they all sound like New Age gurus beckoning us to embrace the light. 

Ritchie makes things appear even more self-important by throwing in a slew of pompous quotes, which he flashes onscreen so fast you’re sure he’s attempting subliminal mind control.  Frankly, it feels like he just spent way too much time at the local Kabbalah center.  Either it’s an action movie or it’s a Deepak Chopra video, Guy.  Decide.

As if all this psychobabble isn’t enough, Ritchie ends with a series of interviews during the final credits.  Cue Deepak Chopra again (he has a cameo), who offers this theory: “In religion, the ego manifests as the devil.  And, of course, no one realizes how smart the ego is because it created the devil, so you could blame someone else.”

Which may explain why Ritchie wrote and directed this film.  The devil made him do it.

DVD EXTRAS:

• Director’s commentary
• Deleted Scenes and Outtakes
• “The Concept” featurette
• “The Game:  The Making of Revolver” featurette

CAUTIONS:

• Drugs/Alcohol:  Characters drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes throughout film.
• Language/Profanity:  Numerous obscenities and profanities, many strong.
• Sexual Content/Nudity:  Partial nudity and a few graphic sexual scenes. 
• Violence:  Very strong violence including multiple threats and repeated murders, many of which are bloody and graphic.  In one scene, a child’s life is threatened by a sadistic killer.  Numerous scenes involving brutal torture, including a man being set on fire, another strung up by his feet and repeatedly dipped into cold water; a man’s hand is nailed to a table.