Image by Roberto Lee Cortes from Pixabay “When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them…he was my father.” – Michael Sullivan, Jr. (played by Tyler Hoechlin) “Revenge is never a straight line. It’s a forest…it’s easy to lose your way…to get lost…to forget where you came in.” – Hattori Hanzō (played by Sonny Chiba) To say that violence has been a staple in cinema since its early years is an understatement. Despite a particular sector of American society purporting to uphold Puritanical virtues about shielding peoples’ eyes from blood and gore in the movies, it’s clear based on the kinds of movies that have made money at the box office for decades that audiences enjoy seeing death and destruction on the big screen. From Commando and Cape Fear to John Wick and Mandy, filmmakers with highly varied sensibilities put their own unique stamp on the action genre and keep viewers coming back for more in the process.
But, in my humble opinion, there is a particular kind of violence that can elevate what would otherwise be a standard action, crime, or adventure flick to a critically and commercially successful piece of art: a character-focused journey for revenge. There are certainly numerous potential reasons as to why moviegoers gravitate to stories about characters betrayed, cheated, or otherwise personally wronged who risk it all to seek some distorted sense of vigilante justice and retribution from those that wronged them. My hope with today’s blog is to examine several movies with distinctive identities that fit within the revenge subgenre in order to explore what exactly is enticing about this kind of story. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for several movies. You have been warned.] Road to Perdition (2002) Within a year of its initial publication, the graphic novel “Road to Perdition” by author Max Allan Collins was already being eyed for a film adaptation. Collins’ agent managed to get the novel in front of the eyes of legendary producer Richard D. Zanuck (Jaws, Driving Miss Daisy, Deep Impact) who brought it to the attention of director Steven Spielberg. Despite his full directing slate, Spielberg showed interest by setting the project up at DreamWorks for development. Meanwhile, up-and-coming film director Sam Mendes (Jarhead, Skyfall, 1917) was coming off of his Oscar-winning directorial debut American Beauty looking for another project. When DreamWorks sent Mendes the pitch for adapting Collins’ graphic novel, he was immediately attracted by its simple narrative yet complex themes (specifically its exploration of the impact of violence on children) despite lacking any absolute moral stance about the characters actions. With more drafts of the script were written, the film became more and more detached from sticking closely to Collins’ graphic novel. While several core elements of the narrative were retained, everything from character names to subplots were taken out or changed. Notably, the character of Harlen Maguire (Jude Law) was injected into the screenplay to help keep up the tension of the Sullivans being on the run. Furthermore, cinematographer Conrad Hall (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) encouraged Mendes to avoid gratuitous violence in favor of poignant, meaningful moments. Mendes, meanwhile, sought to focus on the graphic novel’s essence through emphasizing the “nonverbal simplicity” evident in the films of Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa. (This ended up causing the final twenty minutes of the movie to have only six lines of dialogue) Throughout the writing process, Collins remained a consultant but chose to not be directly involving in screenwriting due to his respect for how different the medium is from literature. While he praised several changes from his novel to the film (i.e. Law’s character, the minimalist dialogue, the characterization of Paul Newman’s role), he criticized others (i.e. the excessive vulgarity, Michael Sullivan, Jr. not killing anyone, the narrative framing device). Tom Hanks, who ended up playing the protagonist Michael Sullivan, was busy filming Cast Away with Robert Zemeckis when Spielberg sent him a copy of Collins’ graphic novel. But it was the first draft of the screenplay that caused him to get very hooked into the story (specifically as a father of four). Tyler Hoechlin, who played Michael, Jr., was hired out of a crop of over 2,000 candidates, whereas Paul Newman (The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, The Color of Money) was the unanimous ideal choice for Sullivan’s father figure John Rooney. Principal photography took place over the course of several winter and spring months of 2001, concluding in June. To craft an authentic atmosphere for the movie, Mendes filmed on location in Chicago and had interior sets built in order to better control the lighting environment. In collaboration with Conrad Hall, Mendes sought to create a “violent and magnificent” atmosphere to serve the story of father and son “in the last period of lawlessness in American history.” In crafting the lighting for the film, Mendes looked to the artwork of American realist and New York native Edward Hopper by following a “less is more” mantra. When exterior scenes were shot, Mendes incorporated real-world weather conditions such as rain and snow to reflect the emotional states of the characters. In another impeccable example of visual storytelling, Hall specifically positioned the camera a ways away from Hanks during the first half of the movie in order to capture Michael, Jr.’s ignorance of his father’s true nature. Furthermore, Hanks’s entrances through doorways were shot partially obscured and in shadows. Finally, Hall’s wide lens helps sufficiently distance Hanks’s character from the audience over the course of the movie. Released in July of 2002 (an uncommon release window for a drama alongside the action blockbusters typical of the time), Road to Perdition grossed over 183 million dollars on an 80-million-dollar budget and received widespread acclaim from critics. The central performances from Hanks and Newman were praised, as was Hall’s cinematography, even though some critics felt Mendes detrimentally kept audiences emotionally distanced (and thus uninvested) from many of the characters (Michael, Jr. being the exception). The film was nominated for six Oscars, winning only Best Cinematography for Conrad Hall (who had passed away barely two months before the ceremony that year). Notably, this was Newman’s final Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor) before his death in 2008. Of all the movies directed by Sam Mendes, Road to Perdition (in my humble opinion) is the best of his movies that has received the least positive attention in the mainstream since it came out. It remains on my working list of underappreciated and underrated flicks that I recommend to friends and family whenever I get the chance. While there’s a lot to like about the film, I want to focus on the enduring relatability of its narrative: a father seeking revenge for the deaths of his family. While not a father myself, the plight of mobster Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) as he hunts down his adoptive father figure John Rooney (Paul Newman) for murdering his wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and second son Peter (Liam Aiken) is such a compelling story to watch unfold. Undoubtedly, Hanks delivers what might just be his most morally corrupt performance to date. Obviously, the ingrained criminal nature of Sullivan makes for an uncharacteristic archetype for Hanks to play. But what I think Hanks does to excel in this role beyond peoples’ expectations of him are how much he counters the popular perception of him as a charming and lovable man. Hanks, instead, plays Sullivan as an admirable and respectable father whose thirst for Rooney’s blood complicates his relationship to violence and, therefore, the viewer’s relationship to Sullivan. But the added narrative twist that makes the revenge thrills of Road to Perdition transcend their genre trappings is Sullivan’s other priority following Annie and Peter’s deaths: keeping his eldest son, Michael, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), from following in his father’s footsteps. In sharp contrast to the scenes involving Sullivan tracking down Rooney and killing anybody that gets in his way of doing so, watching Michael, Jr. develop a more intimate and loving bond with his father on the road than they ever had during their normal lives is heartbreakingly tragic and ironic. It is this strand of the film’s narrative that turns it from very good to great. Whereas most revenge flicks evoke catharsis in the audience simply by showing the person who’s been wronged achieve their goal of getting back at the person or people that wronged them, Road to Perdition establishes the true stakes as Sullivan doing everything in his power to shield his son from any desire to kill while simultaneously allowing himself to be consumed by it. A simple thematic premise, but a powerful one nonetheless. Aside from the main narrative, it is the other elements of moviemaking on display that incite Road to Perdition to transcend greatness into its status as a modern, underrated classic. On the one hand, Mendes skillfully structures the story to inject enough levity between Hanks and Hoechlin so as to keep this dark, violent drama from becoming overbearingly so (I always loved the scenes involving Michael, Jr. learning to be a getaway driver) Aside from the writing and direction, the lighting and cinematography are often applied to sheer perfection. Notably, the standout climactic scene occurs on the rainy streets of Chicago when Sullivan (cloaked in urban shadows) guns down several of Rooney’s men before confronting Rooney face to face and killing him. As an end to the closest thing Sullivan had to a father-son relationship, it serves as the tragic end to one of the last things tying him to life. The other thing, of course, is Michael, Jr. whom he wants to keep alive and sheltered until his dying breath. Ultimately, he is successful despite having to kill assassin Harlen Maguire (Jude Law) after being fatally shot by Maguire himself. Bleeding out on the floor of a beach house, he dies being held in his son’s arms but not before managing to proudly assure Michael, Jr. that he knew his son was incapable of killing. All in all, Road to Perdition will always be one of my favorite gangster movies and one of the prime examples of how emotionally complex and thematically rich the revenge subgenre can be. Its exploration of the consequences of violence is great and its cinematic techniques on display are captivating. But I’m grateful that the film exists, first and foremost, as a story reminding fathers to show love towards their sons while also reminding sons the lengths their fathers will go and what they will sacrifice for them. Kill Bill (2003-2004) While filming his sophomore feature Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight) collaborated with star Uma Thurman (Gattaca, Paycheck) to conceive of “The Bride” character which led to Tarantino working approximately eighteen months on the script during his time in New York City in the early 2000s. Nearing completing on the script, Tarantino realized that his protagonist’s child could be alive (it was spending time around Thurman, who had recently given birth to her first daughter Maya Hawke, that influenced Tarantino regarding this decision and his approach to “The Bride” character overall). In conceptualizing the film, Tarantino aimed to pay homage and respect to the “grindhouse cinema” of the 1970s (specifically martial arts, samurai, and blaxploitation films, and spaghetti westerns). Notably, the yellow tracksuit, helmet, and motorcycle worn by Thurman’s character were inspired by Bruce Lee’s outfit in 1972’s Game of Death. Furthermore, the animated sequence is largely drawn from violent anime movies like 1987’s Wicked City. As production was set to begin, Thurman became pregnant with her son Levon so Tarantino delayed production. Principal photography lasted just over five months, and Tarantino shot the movie sequentially despite the final edit showing scenes out of chronological order. Additionally, martial arts choreographer and Honk Kong native Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) was hired to advise the action scenes. Despite making Kill Bill as a single movie, Tarantino succumbed to pressure by producer Harvey Weinstein to release it as two films as a compromise to cut less scenes. Tarantino himself has said that his biggest challenge in making the movie was creating his own unique spin on action as opposed to relying more heavily on dialogue as he had done in previous projects. Given the time period when he was filming, Tarantino forewent CGI to instead rely on practical effects (particularly those used in Chinese cinema from the 1970s). As filming was wrapping up, Thurman was injured in an auto accident after requesting that a stunt driver do the scene in her stead. She sustained a concussion and damage to her knees as a result of the crash, incentivizing her to request Miramax to release the crash footage which they agreed to on the condition Thurman legally absolve them of any permanent damage to her person. The crash tainted Thurman and Tarantino’s relationship for years, and Thurman has expressed that her acting and career have been affected ever since. Made on a combined budget of approximately 60 million dollars, the two parts of Kill Bill (subtitled Volume 1 and Volume 2, respectively) were released less than a year apart in October of 2003 and April of 2004. Their box offices combined, Kill Bill grossed roughly 333 million dollars and received largely critical acclaim for its style and respectful parody of grindhouse cinema. Thurman’s performance was well received, although neither of the Kill Bill flicks received any Oscar nominations. However, Tarantino’s female-led revenge duology is highly regarded as two of the best action movies of the 21st century. Also, the first film’s use of Tomoyasu Hotei’s song “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” has become a staple of pop culture and was also used in films like Shrek the Third, Team America: World Police, and The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Generally speaking, I consider myself a fan of Tarantino. Aside from Pulp Fiction, which unquestionably remains my favorite directed feature of his, I also quite enjoy Jackie Brown, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And while I don’t love Inglorious Basterds or Django Unchained as much as many Tarantino fans do, I can appreciate their sheer entertainment value. But when it comes to the Kill Bill movies, I don’t quite understand what the big deal is. Upon reflection of my experience watching the Kill Bill duology, I think it ends up being more disappointing than unenjoyable. Going into these movies after seeing how Tarantino had evolved as a filmmaker in his early years, I was hopeful that his signature dialogue combined with over-the-top, heightened action scenes and a layered emotional journey for “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) could make for his best example of cinematic storytelling yet. What ended up happening, however, was Taratino’s biggest strengths and flaws as a filmmaker clashing to subpar effect. For starters, I’ve always found my favorite part of Tarantino’s distinctive and eccentric style to be the dialogue-driven mingling among his protagonists. Essentially, the action and plot of his stories are (almost) always propelled forward by his exceptionally strong, well-written characters whose banter back and forth is just as (if not more) entertaining to watch as his gratuitous hyper-stylized violence. And out of all of his movies, I think Tarantino relies least on this defining strength in the Kill Bill films. Sure, there are some superb scenes that rely more on character interactions (notably Bill’s monologue about Superman in Vol. 2) but they are few and far between when compared to much of Tarantino’s other work. Which gets to my least favorite part of these movies: the action. Maybe I should’ve checked my expectations before watching Kill Bill, but I’m just not as entertained by swashbuckling sword fights and martial-arts beatdowns in the style of the iconic wuxia and chanbara action genres of China and Japan, respectively, as I am by tense, dramatic dinner scenes in Django Unchained or a bunch of angry assholes holding each other at gunpoint in The Hateful Eight. Beyond that, however, this style of violence in movies (particularly in live action) is simply too cartoonish for me. While I can appreciate and enjoy it in small bits (like the animated sequence in Vol. 1 that works surprisingly well), the major fight scenes in both parts of Kill Bill (like “The Bride” facing off against O-Ren’s Crazy 88 in Vol. 1) just don’t do it for me. I do get what Tarantino is doing in paying homage to East Asian cinema that he grew up watching and loving, and I’m sure if I was in his position, I’d have some intense nostalgia for these kinds of movies. But I don’t, and thus much of what Kill Bill relies on to hook the audience into its four-hour-plus epic revenge tale. And this gets to my biggest complaint about these movies: why couldn’t Tarantino just grit his teeth and edit it down to one super-sized film? I greatly admire him as an artist and filmmaker, and have always found his overtly egotistical personality somewhat endearing. But I just wish he would’ve convinced Harvey Weinstein to submit a three-hour-ish cut to the studio and said, “That’s the movie. Take it or leave it.” Instead, what we got was a movie more than four hours long edited into two halves that, when combined with the regular cutting back and forth through time, makes for what ultimately comes off to me as a jumbled mess of a story. Uma Thurman’s “The Bride” probably deserves better than what Tarantino ultimately released in the Kill Bill duology. Her desire for revenge is incredibly sympathetic (the “church slaughter” scene makes for one of the genuinely dramatic and emotional sequences between both movies), but the movie that surrounds her just doesn’t add up to the sum of its parts. I know my opinion is unpopular, and hopefully when I rewatch the two Kill Bill flicks at some point in the future when Tarantino announces his last film, I’ll enjoy them more. For now, though, I watch them and end up feeling very “whelmed.” The Revenant (2015) As early as 2001, Hollywood was trying to adapt Michael Punke’s novel “The Revenant” (in turn based on the 1915 poem “The Song of Hugh Glass”) into a feature film. Several producers, such as screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (The Client, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man) and writer/director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Snowpiercer), picked up and dropped the project over the course of nearly a decade. By August of 2011, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman) signed on to direct the movie with several production companies such as New Regency joining the effort as well. By this point, Iñárritu was seeking out Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street) for the lead role of Glass. Once hired, Iñárritu worked on rewrites with screenwriter Mark L. Smith (Overlord, The Midnight Sky), who had penned an initial drift ten years prior. Smith himself admits that he was apprehensive if Iñárritu would be able to film some of the sequences they were writing but went along with it for the time being. After the production was put on hold from 2012 to 2014 while Iñárritu filmed (and won a Best Picture and Best Director Oscar for) Birdman, the budget and casting were finalized with DiCaprio signed on but Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down, Warrior, Mad Max: Fury Road) taking the other lead role that Iñárritu originally wanted to be played by Sean Penn (Casualties of War, Mystic River, Milk). Principal photography kicked off in October of 2014. Several conditions of filming stretched out the shooting schedule for almost a full year. First off, Iñárritu utilized natural lighting and real-world locations which required using “40% of the day” to simply travel to, light, and stage every scene which could often be hampered by weather conditions. Furthermore, several crew members either quit or were laid off by Iñárritu himself. DiCaprio has said that at least 30 sequences in the movie were “some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.” Despite all of these obstacles, Iñárritu managed to shoot the movie chronologically per his desires (despite doing so increased the film’s budget by at least seven million dollars). By the time production wrapped in August of 2015, the cost of the movie had more than doubled to 135 million dollars. Released on Christmas Day in 2015, The Revenant earned over 530 million dollars at the box office and was mostly warmly received by critics. While DiCaprio’s performance and Iñárritu’s direction received universal and near-universal praise, respectively, some critics took issue with the screenplay and runtime. Ultimately, The Revenant earned a leading twelve nominations at that year’s Academy Awards (including Best Picture). In addition to Emmanuel Lubezki winning Best Cinematography, Iñárritu became the third director in history to win Best Director two years consecutively (following John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives and All Above Eve). Notably, DiCaprio won his first acting Oscar after being nominated four times prior (five counting his producer credit on The Wolf of Wall Street). The Revenant was actually the first of Iñárritu’s films that I saw. I distinctly remember going to the theater with my dad around New Year’s Eve the year it came out, and we both left the theater stunned by what we’d just watched. It was an incredibly harsh yet cathartic viewing experience, and remains one of my most memorably moviegoing experiences of the last decade even though The Revenant is not a big blockbuster episode of a mega-franchise like Marvel or Star Wars. And despite some initial apprehension on my part when I rewatched it over a year ago, I underwent a similar thrilling and emotionally draining experience seeing The Revenant again that (almost) matched my first unforgettable time seeing it. While I really like Birdman, I do think that The Revenant is Iñárritu’s best film. Among other reasons, I think this is partially due to the fact that it’s surprisingly his most accessible film. For one thing, the story is simple: fur trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is nearly mauled to death by a bear in the American wilderness of the early 19th century and, due to his injuries, ends up being left for head by his less courageous contemporary John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) after watching his son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) get stabbed to death by Fitzgerald. Over the course of the next nearly two hours, the audience watches Glass endure hell on Earth to return to the trappers’ home at Fort Kiowa and, with the help of Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), track down Fitzgerald and kill him as retribution for Hawk’s murder. Simply put, in virtually every scene it is evident that Iñárritu and the creative team both in front of and behind the camera wholly committed to immersing the audience in the unforgiving world of The Revenant. Aside from the plot itself, Iñárritu’s reliance on natural lighting combined with his staging of the action (notably the opening skirmish between the trappers and local indigenous tribe) and the breathtaking cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, Gravity, Birdman) perfectly captures the ruthless ambiance and life-threatening environment of the setting. When it comes to seeing Glass or any of the other characters interacting with their surroundings, never once does the audience fail to suspend their disbelief which allows them to be fully immersed in the world that Iñárritu creates for us. For a movie like this, the believability of the environment is perhaps the most important thing to get right. Of course, nobody that sees The Revenant comes away from it without being fully aware of the impression that DiCaprio’s powerful, transcendent performance has left on them. Similar to Iñárritu’s fully immersive atmosphere of the American frontier, DiCaprio’s inspiring and admirable commitment to every part of Glass’s story of survival only enhances the viewing experience. And when you remember that his fight to live is motivated purely by a desire to avenge his son’s death, the movie takes on a more empathetic and heartbreaking tone than what it would’ve had if this strand of the narrative was absent in lieu of Iñárritu making a straightforward survival flick. I tend to enjoy movies that seamlessly integrate the three major sources of narrative conflict, which The Revenant does to a tee. First, Glass’s struggle to survive the wilderness in an effort to return to Fort Kiowa still breathing perfectly encapsulates “man vs. nature.” Second, the hostiles that Glass encounters along the way (and, of course, the final confrontation between Glass and Fitzgerald) makes for some solid “man vs. man” entertainment. Finally, Glass’s internal struggle over his relationship with violence and his lust for revenge, in contrast to acting out of honor for his son’s memory, serves as the “man vs. self” cherry on top, so to speak, of the film’s layered yet easy-to-follow story. In my humble opinion, this is what sets The Revenant apart (or at least helps it stand out) from most other films in the revenge subgenre. To be fair, the film is by no means perfect. At over two-and-a-half hours, it does feel slightly drawn out without needing to be. Certainly, a handful of scenes could’ve been slimmed down (and maybe one of two even cut) to make for fifteen minutes less and thus allow the movie to work even better and the littlest bit less of a hardship that some viewers find it to be. That being said, The Revenant is one of those rare movies that I think works in spite of its runtime. Simply put, the potential exhaustion you’ll feel by the time the credits roll is more than worth it. And hey, at least it wasn’t split into two movies like Kill Bill. 😊 Each of the movies I’ve discussed here today utilize revenge, either adequately or spectacularly, as a motif of storytelling to ingratiate the audience to a diverse array of protagonists with distinct personalities yet a shared bloodlust to make right the wrongs done to them and their loved ones. In a way, like many film genres and creative outlets in general, revenge stories are a prime method of vicarious fantasy and escapism for consumers of such art to emotionally live out how they would act if who they cared about most in this world were taken from them. Whether you fear what you would become in such a predicament—like Hugh Glass in The Revenant—or your primary concern is the legacy you leave behind for your offspring—like Michael Sullivan in Road to Perdition—revenge will likely always be a one-way ticket to death and destruction. But, thanks to movies, we can just fantasize about taking such a path rather than suffer the trials and tribulations of it ourselves. If you’re interested, I’ve written about several other notable revenge movies: Brian de Palma’s Carrie, the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Just to name a few. 😊 What is your favorite revenge movie that I discussed today? What are some other revenge movies that you recommend? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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