Revenge For Jolly! – Review

11th May 2014

After Harry (screenwriter Brian Pestos) fails to complete a task asked of him, he returns home to find his beloved dog and closest thing to a romantic relationship Jolly murdered. This so incenses him, that he enlists the help of best friend Cecil (Oscar Isaac) and takes a trunk full of guns to avenge her.

Both main characters are played well, though Pestos doesn’t find a balance of being funny and serious so despite that fact he’s supposedly a “good guy”, he just seems like a psychopath. Alongside Pestos and Isaac is a slew of supporting cast cameos from Elijah Wood, Kristin Wiig and Ryan Philleppe to name but three, all of whom bring a distinctive charisma to each role.

It is both parts ridiculous and violent, which balance well so that you don’t need worry about the morality of what you’re seeing. As the story goes on the guns may get bigger but the stakes don’t get any higher. It plateaus in as far as motivation and interest, basically meaning if you’re not in from the get go, tough. There is primal pleasure to be found in the constant stream of darkly comic murders and characters, but it doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Revenge For Jolly aims for a feeling of a larger world beyond the frame, like “the thing” that wasn’t done, but it never really succeeds. It is too focused on the guns and gaining pleasure from the dispatching of various stars instead of making you care about why it was happening. Where it definitely excels is in it’s dark humour and more comedic moments (“Who throws ranch?” and Adam Brody’s hair are two particular highlights), and I was certainly laughing throughout, but I had lost all interest in why this was happening.

It is a “cool” film, not bothered with things like how 2 or 3 dimensional the characters are or their actions being likeable or even justified, instead focusing on what is immediately and viscerally fun to see. In this particular case this leads to problems like not earning its ending and the plot not quite working.

That isn’t to say it is a bad film and I did undoubtedly enjoy myself. I certainly think that, for the most part, it achieves what it set out to do, and it is knowingly short to match it’s ridiculousness, but it’s preoccupation with being cool and fun ultimately leads to the film asking, or rather begging, you to just go with it, which is it’s largest problem; expecting you to ignore all the technical faults.

The whole time I was watching this, I was torn between my 15 year old self just going with it like the film wants me to, but my degree was jabbing him in the shoulder saying “You know this is bobbins right? Why should you care? What a crap line!”. While it was a constant push and pull between visceral enjoyment and technical disjointedness, the enjoyment won out eventually, but this will certainly be the case for many.

Despite not being a technically a good film, I really did enjoy myself. While it’s ridiculous in pretty much every way, it is knowingly so and there is dark fun to be had here for those who can leave their brain at the door.

Bonus Features

None to speak of on the UK DVD release, unless you count a choice between 2.0 or 5.1 stereo. I’m unsure of whether this is different on the Blu-Ray.

Available on DVD & Blu-Ray Now.

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