Al Pacino goes all angsty in this film version of the American War of Independence, a film surprisingly made by the Brits (surprising given the content of the storyline). REVOLUTION was bad enough to single-handedly destroy the British film industry in the late 1980s, and it only really got going again a decade later.
Whichever way you look at it, this is dull stuff indeed. Pacino's heart clearly isn't in it, and he feels and sounds like a very boring Tony Montana here. Donald Sutherland plays a British villain, somewhat inexplicably, and watching him struggling with a Yorkshire accent of all things is one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in a movie.
REVOLUTION's general look and feel is decent, and Norway makes a good stand-in for true American locales. But the battle scenes are cheap-looking and the storyline never really goes anywhere despite the lengthy running time. Everybody seems to be a bad guy and the performances are way over the top; take Richard O'Brien for example. The only fun I had from it was spotting the youthful British stars at the beginning of their careers (Dexter Fletcher, Robbie Coltrane, Sid Owen, etc.), otherwise this is boring stuff indeed.
Whichever way you look at it, this is dull stuff indeed. Pacino's heart clearly isn't in it, and he feels and sounds like a very boring Tony Montana here. Donald Sutherland plays a British villain, somewhat inexplicably, and watching him struggling with a Yorkshire accent of all things is one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in a movie.
REVOLUTION's general look and feel is decent, and Norway makes a good stand-in for true American locales. But the battle scenes are cheap-looking and the storyline never really goes anywhere despite the lengthy running time. Everybody seems to be a bad guy and the performances are way over the top; take Richard O'Brien for example. The only fun I had from it was spotting the youthful British stars at the beginning of their careers (Dexter Fletcher, Robbie Coltrane, Sid Owen, etc.), otherwise this is boring stuff indeed.