Revengers Tragedy
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
Alex Cox is a filmmaker who never sold out, though he has
not always been able to get it together as a filmmaker. Repo Man (1984) had the
incompleteness of some of Larry Cohen’s films and also became a cult
classic. Sid & Nancy (1986)
continues to be his most famous and commercially successful work, though he has
been making feature films since. His
ninth and still most recent film is Revengers Tragedy (2002), which
qualifies as part of the modernist Shakespeare cycle of recent films by default
despite not being a work by The Bard.
Instead, the still-outrageous play by Thomas Middleton was
first performed by The Bard’s company, The King’s Men, so it cannot escape its
time or form. The tale of a man in love
with his mother and sister, Vindici (Christopher Eccleston) wanting to get
revenge on The Duke (Derek Jacobi) for killing his wife ten years prior. However, The Duke has a predecessor in
Lussurioso (Eddie Izzard) to also contend with. This is set in a near future where electronic surveillance
reaches the lowliest ghettos and the world teeters towards being much worse
instead of better.
Everyone talks in a language and way that makes you wonder
how good English returned to the post-Punk world. Though this is a good film for what it is and more well rounded
than Cox’s more popular works, there is little here we have not already seen in
Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), Julie Taymor’s Titus
(2000) and all of their imitators. In
many reviews, you will see great names of other director’s quoted every time a
critic tries to describe a Cox film.
Maybe this is because he is the most successful nearly-auteur working
today. He has talent and even focus,
but something is holding him back form more critical and commercial success
that will only become more apparent as we catch up with the rest of his feature
films.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks good, but
has some minor but noticeable detail limits.
Cinematographer Len Gowing makes his feature film debut here and
delivers the slightly organized worlds of visual Punk chaos Cox’s films are
known for. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is
not bad, which also happens to be the theatrical soundtrack for the film. Too bad neither had DTS, as this is on the
well-recorded side, with a surprisingly good score from the band
Chumbawamba. Best known for their U.S.
hit Tubthumping, which had one of the most enjoyable live (and
unintentionally hilarious) Music Videos of its time (on the terrific MTV 20
– Pop DVD, if you can find it) to go with it, the band has much more to
offer and deserved better than a hit.
Did U.S. radio find them too radical and subversive, even on the default
of having too much energy? This film
helps make the argument that this critic might be correct.
Extras include a mixed audio commentary by Cox and Izzard
that is not as rich as was hoped for, a behind the scenes piece (28 minutes),
five additional featurettes, a stills gallery and a missing scene. That scene did not help the film, so it was
better without it. That is a nice set
without much overlap, but it does not add much to a film that feels a few years
too late to be cutting edge. At least
it has an edge.
- Nicholas Sheffo
