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Revanche (2008)

tomatometer

96

Average Rating: 7.8/10
Reviews Counted: 80
Fresh: 77 | Rotten: 3

With Revanche, Götz Spielmann has crafted a debut as surprising as it is suspenseful.

95

Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 22
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 1

With Revanche, Götz Spielmann has crafted a debut as surprising as it is suspenseful.

audience

79

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 3,921

My Rating

Movie Info

A happily married couple becomes unlikely friends with a man whose life has been marked by chaos and violence in this drama from Austria. Alex (Johannes Krisch) is a small-time criminal who, after a stretch in prison, finds himself working for Konecny (Hanno Pöschl), who runs a grimy house of prostitution; unknown to Konecny, Alex is also involved with Tamara (Irina Potapenko), one of his whores. Wanting to raise some quick cash, Alex robs a bank in a nearby small town and hides out on a farm

Feb 16, 2010

Janus Films

All Critics (80) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (80) | Rotten (3) | DVD (8)

A surprisingly unruffled tale of love, thievery, murder and revenge.

January 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The plot might have yielded a generic erotic thriller if Revanche were made by rougher hands. Instead it becomes something more sophisticated thanks to the efforts of writer-director Götz Spielmann and a superb cast.

January 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's real biblical tragedy, and redemption, in Spielmann's fine, sad, suspenseful film.

November 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A film of carefully strained pulp and rigorously controlled intrigue, the Austrian revenge drama Revanche, which is really about the dividing line between vengeance and forgiveness, belongs to a neo-noir universe where all the classical genre laws apply.

August 14, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Writer-director Gotz Spielmann (Antares) avoids the clutter and manipulation of most thrillers, escalating tension almost solely through the characters' turbulent emotions.

August 7, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Revanche involves a rare coming together of a male's criminal nature and a female's deep needs, entwined with a first-rate thriller.

August 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Austria's nominee for the Best Foreign Language Oscar is a precise and effective psychological thriler

June 15, 2011 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

Here justice moves slowly, and in mysterious ways - and Spielmann's final reckoning of accounts, though unexpected, is subtly satisfying.

July 13, 2010 Full Review Source: Eye for Film | Comment
Eye for Film

Gotz Speilmann's film is well-made, aptly characterised and seems frighteningly true to life.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

More character study than thriller (the title means "revenge"), this slow-burning Austrian film effectively holds our interest with its unpredictable plot, even though it's not easy to care where it's going.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | Comment
Shadows on the Wall

Revanche (French for 'revenge') is that rarest of things -- a thoughtful thriller.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

It unfurls at a slow, measured pace, and director Götz Spielmann uses the plot's Noir-esque trappings as a jumping-off point for an absorbing morality tale about the way life never turns out as planned. It's bleak, but in a good way.

May 3, 2010 Full Review Source: Scotsman | Comment

A modern fable which draws broad parallels and depicts profound moral quandaries with an elegance and frankness rare in cinema.

May 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

It has a distinctive sort of Euro-hardcore sheen, mainly due to the superbly lucid, diamond-hard cinematography from Martin Gschlacht.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

It's a slow-burning Austrian thriller with no stars, no special effects and, by the looks of it, almost no budget. But sometimes a little goes a long way.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | Comment
Daily Mirror [UK]

Aided by a terrific performance from Krisch and an exceptional ensemble cast, Revanche is a beautifully crafted psychological thriller that should firmly place Götz Spielmann on the world cinema map.

April 30, 2010 Comment
Little White Lies

The film exerts a steady grip without charging head-first into thriller territory: there's a cool, cosmic irony to the way fate wheels around.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | Comment
Daily Telegraph

As good a thriller as you'll see this year.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Tauntingly slow but hauntingly shot (and edited with crisp abruptness), it was a deserving nominee for Best Foreign Film at last year's Oscars.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Financial Times | Comment
Financial Times

This riveting study of desire, isolation, guilt and redemption bears the influence of both Robert Bresson and Michael Haneke, and proves surprisingly optimistic in its assessment of human weakness.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Radio Times | Comment
Radio Times

From pacing and composition to its frank attitude to sex and wonderfully open performances, the film is a largely pretension-free zone. A fine lesson in the art of storytelling.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Sky Movies | Comment
Sky Movies

It's a truly refreshing movie that justly received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

April 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

The film's first half uses a restrained style to build interest, while the latter, as clever in its construction as it is human, elevates the characters of this potential potboiler.

March 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Bright Lights Film Journal | Comment
Bright Lights Film Journal

feels like the product of a master craftsman

February 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Revanche

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about these Central European films that make them so entrancing..maybe it's the film-makers' approach of handling subjects that are so close to real life; so tangible that you feel a part of it all! Austrian writer-director Gotz Spielmann's 2008 film "Revanche"

February 23, 2011
Aditya Gokhale
Aditya Gokhale

Super Reviewer

In many ways, Revanche is almost two separate films. Exactly halfway through the film, it takes a turn that, while somewhat dependent on the opening, can exist on its own. The same goes for the first half. The credits could role at the one hour mark and the film would still feel complete. Still, they both influence

January 12, 2010
neverteaseaweasel
Jake ....

Super Reviewer

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