Revanche is an Austrian crime thriller that really works. Alex is employed at a brothel where he falls for one of the girls, Tamara. He wants to get away and leave for a better life. He tells his Ukrainian girlfriend that he has the perfect plan to rob a local bank. She protests at first, but eventually agrees to be his getaway driver. All goes smoothly until they are shot at by Robert, the policeman responding to the crime. He aims at the tires but shoots through the rear window, killing Tamara. Alex escapes and buries his dead partner in the woods. The first in a series of coincidences as Alex hides out at his grandfather Hausner's isolated house in a rural area. The neighbor happens to be Robert, the cop, and his wife, Susanne, who is good friends with Hausner.Robert is bothered by the death of Tamara, and is suspended from the police force. His wife, meanwhile, has sex with Alex because of her husband's coldness. The conclusion is very unexpected and I highly recommend Revanche.

...and I should've done it sooner.Husband and I love films, love foreign films, even love slow-build films. But we tried our hardest and finally gave up after an hour. This was cinema torture. We finished watching on fast-forward, just to see if we were missing anything. (And the answer is, not really. Not one scene was compelling enough to make us stop skipping and watch properly again, all the way through to the end.) Quite simply, nothing happens in this movie. There are several minute stretches of (e.g.) nothing but a car in the distance and multiple scenes of chopping wood and accordion playing. The whole movie is one big series of redundant scenes, with each aspect of the characters' situations seemingly repeated over and over. I felt no underlying tension or menace at all, and when the big "revenche" comes it's like...did it happen yet? Was that it? Really?...oh. [*shrug*] Perhaps it is not that the revenche tactic didn't grab me. Could it be that I never really felt any injustice done in the first place? I mean, they had crappy lives and that is sad in a realistic way. But nothing indicates that their situations are not the result of bad life decisions. So, type of revenge aside, I have no thirst for it along with the character. Those being revenged don't feel like they deserve it. Perhaps that's not the point of the story - a "just" revenge - but there was no other emotional engagement either that compelled me to care about what happened.I really have a hard time seeing why this movie has such a high rating. And if you're wondering whether I - or the high-raters - match your taste, consider this one fact: The plot point for which the entire movie is named doesn't even *BEGIN to unfold* until somewhere between 50-60 minutes in! First 35min at least, can be skipped entirely.

Celebrated Austrian writer and director Götz Spielmann's 2008 revenge thriller Revanche premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival to critical acclaim. It won and was nominated for numerous international film awards, including a nomination for the 2009 Acadamy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.With Revanche, Speilmann has crafted a stylish, tasteful film with an awful lot in its favour. Unfortunately, too often it doesn't quite hang together as it should, the plot strays into the realms of far-fetched and contrived, and it feels that too often Speilmann is reliant on old standard clichés rather than striving to plough new furrows. Definitely a director to watch, but sadly Revanche's faults stop it from being the brilliant thriller it could - and should - have been. LB

When his girlfriend is murdered during a bank robbery escape attempt, former convict Alex vows to take revenge on the man who pulled the trigger. Vengeance seems to make perfect sense until he meets his target face-to-face.'Revanche' is a film that holds its cards close to its chest. Just when you think you have the story pinned in the first half-hour, all hell breaks loose and the film takes a wholly unexpected turn. It is a film that not only challenges you to predict what comes next, but one that forces you to decide whether revenge ever makes sense, to confront feelings of anguish and make decisions you can live with. In the character of Alex, we have a man used to dealing with the rougher side of humanity, which has hardened him in order to survive. The loss of his girlfriend Tamara robs him of the only time he allows himself to be someone else, at peace with the world. Into this world comes the unassuming presence of Robert, a policeman committed to serving the public, yet whom has never faced the hardest part of the job: taking a life. When Robert is confronted by this reality, it is then that we truly learn who he is. This, ultimately, is what the film is about - throwing ordinary people into life's darkest waters and seeing whether or not they will swim back into the light. Writer and director Götz Spielmann presents the viewer with a very compelling drama, which, through its cast of identifiably real characters, engages the viewer throughout. The lines may be drawn between those who feel wronged, but at no time is it ever easy for the viewer to take sides.This perhaps explains the film's pacing and choice of photography. The basic storyline as described could very easily apply to a fast-paced Hollywood blockbuster, trading humanity and intelligence for cliché and car chases. Yet in the truer world of grocery shopping and household chores, moments of high drama are spaced apart by long periods of calm inactivity, leaving people to brood into the small hours over the choices they have made - the perfect environment within which feelings of revenge and misery can blossom. 'Revanche' is paced in such a way, with the principal characters having to tend to family and the ordinary demands of life while barely holding themselves together over the losses they have suffered. Yet these are their only opportunities to heal and come to terms with their pain. Spielmann accentuates these sequences with often picturesque long shots within which silence reigns and the magnitude of the suffering seems to pale into comparison with the enormity of the surrounding world.Johannes Krisch, who some IMDb readers have intriguingly compared to Robert Carlysle, is well-cast as the hardened Alex. He not only looks the part, but conveys just the right mix of softness within a wary, battle-worn shell. Andreas Lust, as Robert, expertly portrays the policeman whose life collapses beneath him, propelling him into a world of anguish and self-doubt. Credit also goes to Johannes Thanheiser as Alex's grandfather, a man for whom life is much the same each day, yet this is no reason to complain, and Ursula Strauss as Susanne, who, as Robert's wife, must balance her role as supporter in difficult times with her needs as a woman.Ultimately, the film leaves the viewer to tie up the loose ends, inviting comment on the drama that has unfolded. This is definitely a strong effort from all concerned, and a very mature approach to what easily could have been a simplistic action snuff piece. It's art imitating life with frankness and honesty, and worthwhile viewing. Actual rating: 7 1/2 stars.