Revengers Tragedy | 
 enlarge | Actors: Fraser Ayres, Anthony Booth, Sophie Dahl, Sammy Duplay, Carla Henry
Studio: Fantoma
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $12.43
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Rating:  16 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 7042
UPC: 695026704225
EAN: 0695026704225
Theatrical Release Date: 2002
Release Date: July 20, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Description
"He Who Seeks Revenge Should Dig Two Graves" Alex Cox's new film is a scathing black comedy about love, sex, family, murder, incest and revenge, set in a post-apocalyptic Liverpool. After ten years in hiding, Vindici (Christopher Eccleston-28 Days Later, The Others) returns to destroy the Duke (Derek Jacobi-Gosford Park, Gladiator) who murdered Vindici's wife on their wedding day. During his absence Vindici's family fell into poverty, while the Duke, Duchess and their decadent sons acquired wealth and power, ruling over their court obsessed with transient beauty, money, inherited privilege and power. Determined to exact his revenge, Vindici sets out to gain the confidence of the Duke and his villainous heir, Lussurioso (Eddie Izzard-Dressed To Kill, Circle). Featuring brilliant performances by Eccleston, Izzard, and Jacobi, Revengers Tragedy proves once again that Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy) is one of the few truly subversive filmmakers at work today. Somewhere between A Clockwork Orange and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet, this updated telling of Thomas Middleton's notorious 17th century play is an energetic and stylish masterwork.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Revenge! Sweet Revenge! (from Ahadada Books) May 15, 2008
M. Hori (Urayasu, Chiba Japan)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Once, over dinner, I heard the late Fielding Dawson chortle:
"Body heat is a Fielding Dawson film! It's just so full of everything that is me!" I thought at the time it was the wine and the star-struck company working on this middle-aged writer's brain, but now I too have found a film to cackle over: Alex Cox's The Revenger's Tragedy. Indeed, I've been cackling over the original play (by Thomas Middleton, or some say Cyril Tourneur) for quite a few years. Here's an example of the powerful writing found in the play in just the opening scene. Vendice (the Revenger) is talking to his lady friend's skull about his intentions toward her murderer the Duke:
Duke; royal lecher; go, grey-hair'd adultery;
And thou his son, as impious steep'd as he;
And thou his bastard, true-begot in evil;
And thou his duchess, that will do with devil.
Four excellent characters--O, that marrowless age
Would stuff the hollow bones with damn'd desires,
And 'stead of heat, kindle infernal fires
Within the spendthrift veins of a dry duke,
A parch'd and juiceless luxur. O God!--one
That has scarce blood enough to live upon,
And he to riot like a son and heir?
O the thought of that
Turns my abused heart-strings into fret.
Thou sallow picture of my poison'd love,
My study's ornament, thou shell of death,
Once the bright face of my betrothed lady,
When life and beauty naturally fill'd out
These ragged imperfections,
When two heaven-pointed diamonds were set
In those unsightly rings--then 'twas a face
So far beyond the artificial shine
Of any woman's bought complexion,
That the uprightest man (if such there be
That sin but seven times a day) broke custom,
And made up eight with looking after her.
***
One can't beat the Elizabethans for their language (as Hart Crane knew) and the play is full of brain-popping tropes that draw one further and further into the wind-up mechanism of the plot.
In the same manner Alex Cox gives us a grim eye-popper of a movie, as mannered visually as the language in Middleton's play is mannered to the ear. Set in Liverpool in 2011, the Revenger's Tragedy takes place in a decadent city in a punked-out country presided over by the present Queen and her degenerate minions. When the Duke dies he's surrounded by teddy bears and love and miss you notes like Princess Di was, and immediately after his death Vendice and his brother and sister watch the duchess fornicate with her son on a sci-fi holographic screen floating in the middle of the polluted air. The look these three have on their faces is one of the high points of the film.
The other is the opening sequence, which encapsulates the out-of-control feeling of the whole production.
A critic on the BBC complained of the "roughness" of the play--but I believe that the studied roughness and the inspired ineptness of some of the performers is part and parcel of punk aesthetics--just as much as the out of tune howls of the Sex Pistols and the jerky narratives of Kathy Acker's best novels. If there is a weakness in the film, I'd say it's in the fact that the language as well as the plot of the original play are not fore-grounded enough. When seeing the film, I'd suggest that you read the play first, then Cox's brilliance shines like a strobe light.
The sound track by Chumbawamba is a stunner too.
Christopher Eccleston does the job as the Revenger Vedici; Eddie Izzard is the Duke's effete heir.
I know I'm behind the times here--the film's been around since 2003, I see, but what the heck, better late than never. My advice: see this DVD with the one you love.
It's a tragedy if you're an Ecclesfan and don't get this movie! July 31, 2007
Tarot (Derry, NH USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Fair warning, this is listed as a "Black Comedy." It's set in a post apocalyptic future, in Liverpool. The cast list alone makes this worthwhile: Christopher Eccleston, Derek Jacobi, & Eddie Izzard, to name but 3 amazing actors in this. The story is an updated retelling of Thomas Middleton's play of the same name, with the 17th century Jacobian language intact. If you enjoyed anything these aforementioned actors have been in, and/or A Clockwork Orange, then you will enjoy this. It's set in Liverpool in a time similar to Clockwork Orange. Vindici (Eccleston) returns after a decade of absence to get revenge on the corrupt Duke (Jacobi) for poisoning his bride on their wedding day. The Duke has prospered and his sons are just as evil as their father, including the Duke's heir and eldest (Izzard). The story unfolds in an interesting manner from there. The language is poetic and rather easy to follow. The acting is superb.
Beautiful July 16, 2007
David A. Lamb
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This film is quite beautiful. The action and story line are presented in such a way as to respect the audience to figure things out. The music (by Chumbawamba, an AMAZING band) fits everything perfectly. Overall, this film sews the elements together wonderfully...highly recommended.
Alex Cox treats his audience like intelligent people - refreshing, ingenuitive February 28, 2007
libbylou (NY)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Artistically, this is a very interesting presentation of the story. By setting it in modern pronunciation (AKA Liverpool accents), the director forces us to understand how closely it resembles our own world; he even mentions in the extras how fitting it was that during the filming the US and Britain entered an actual war of revenge - unfortunately this world is politically strife with revenge and it makes the film that much more topical when he hands it to us in a setting full of factory-lined alleyways, chain link fences, corrugated metal and modern contraptions to allegorically dig in the point.
The actors were absolutely perfect for their roles, every one of them (though i must confess to have a particular weakness for Derek Jacobi and Eddie Izzard - they're just both so interesting in their own right) and unlike Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo, they actually seem to know what they are saying. The manner of speaking incorporates both old style prose and modern day curses and slang, which only seems to further anchor it to the set and make the collaboration of 17th century play and modern day trappings seem all the more natural - kind of a cute way of talking too. The language is very powerful, definitely gets it's point across.
There is makeup on men (as one should expect when reading Eddie Izzard on the playbill), but rather than being a contagion that spread to the other actors I do see this makeup as an artistic advantage. Besides tying the movie to it's stage roots (where all men wear makeup), the makeup visually divulges the excess that these rich men were treating themselves to, and also outlines their vanity very well indeed.
I also found fascinating the movies' proposition that different leadership would simply find different reasons to be corrupt. I am very glad that they left in the scene with the confrontation of the mother. She had toyed with the idea of selling her daughter's favors for the goodwill of the duke. Not only did the confrontation scene provide continuity by tying up this loose end, but it also lets the audience know how fine a line we all walk - how easy it is for vengeance to go too far and for one to become no better than their enemy.
This is the best adaptation of an out-of-date play to the screen that I have seen yet. While I do enjoy old plays, it is very hard to relate to them. The licenses that Alex Cox has taken are illuminating and keep you on your toes.
bring on more middleton, please February 23, 2007
J. W. Hickey (Manhattan area)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Much ado on this DVD is made of whether a reconciliation scene should have been cut from the film. Though after the fact the director states he was probably mistaken when insisting to retain the scene, I heartily disagree.
An early scene shows the main character disguised beyond recognition to his sister and mother. (Neither time I've viewed the film has it been clear to me that the wedding slaughter and his disappearance from society were a decade earlier, likely accounting for his family's not knowing him now.) Incognito, he is pleased to find that his sister is virtuous but shocked to discover that his mother is willing to pimp her daughter's virtue for the sake of payment. This led me to anticipate a climactic scene at the end where the "revenger" would punish his mother for her immorality. The reconciliation that displaces this scene absolutely needs, therefore, to be included in the story.
Regardless of what one voice in the documentary insists, theme is NOT automatically superceded in deference to bloody action, just to keep the 15-yr-olds in the audience attentive. Indeed, one infers that busy MTV editing of a confusing arena competition at the opening of the plot should have been ditched, but was used in deference to mandates of the "weird movie" sponsors of the production.
The second unexpected story element involved a plot to finally kill the Duke. Given the cynical bloodiness of this trenchant satire, when the protagonist's sister agrees to disguise herself as the Duke's lust partner and dons a wig, I feared she'd end up slaughtered by mistake a la TITUS ANDRONICUS and the like. How nice to see she survives unscathed. At least survives THAT adventure!
The DVD correctly identifies this fascinating play as a precursor to Joe Orton. It only whets one's curiosity for more about Thomas Middleton, and to wish some of his other plays were also captured on film.
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