Sweet Revenge is one of those movies
which, when popped in the disc player,
transports one immediately back to the 70s. It
could not have been made during any other
period. Intentionally disdainful of any
traditional structure or any real point, it’s a
slice-of-life character study that is not heavy
on the drama, yet is also not a comedy.
Archibald Macleish once wrote that a poem should
not MEAN, but BE. By that definition, I reckon
this film is a poem. Beginning in the middle,
and ending a bit farther along in the middle, it
just is.
Hey, man, it was the 70s, man. Being
unconventional was de
rigueur, except you couldn't use fancy-ass
terms like de rigueur because
that's the way the man would talk. No, not
you, man. I mean THE man, man. Peace, brother.
Stockard Channing plays a car thief with a dream
– to own a car of her own. The woman doesn’t
want just any old car, but a limited edition
Dino Ferrari. Why doesn’t she steal it, since
that seems to be right up her alley? Because a
car like that is conspicuous and easy to trace,
especially if the police know that one is
missing. Therefore, she has to steal and sell a
bunch of standard production cars in order to
get enough cash to buy the one she really wants. She
runs into legal problems along the way, which
introduces her to an earnest public defender,
played by Sam Waterston as the usual
high-minded, thoughtful, compassionate Sam
Waterston character.
Waterston keeps trying to get our typical 70s
anti-hero, the incorrigible thief, to go
straight, but she continues to run a con game on
him and anybody else she can use to get what she
wants. That’s
pretty much all the film is about. It doesn’t
have much to say, it has an ambiguous
destination, and it moves very slowly toward
that ill-defined end, progressing with a
typically inconsistent tone for the era, but
none of the passion or iconoclasm that made the
best films of that time so memorable.
Although the pace is glacial, the talent
involved is substantial:
Channing, Waterston and Franklin
Ajaye are credible in the three lead roles.
The cinematographer was Vilmos Zsigmond, whose
four Oscar nominations speak for themselves.
He won a BAFTA for The Deer Hunter and an
Oscar for Close Encounters. He shot most of
Sweet Revenge in the Seattle area, an
underused locale which provided an excellent
background for the action
Director Jerry Schatzberg was a talented guy
who helmed some fine films starring Hackman,
Pacino, Streep and some of the other 70s
icons. His works include Scarecrow, The Panic
in Needle Park, and The Seduction of Joe
Tynan.
Unfortunately, all that talent was essentially
wasted on a rambling, seemingly pointless film.
Sweet Revenge has some charms and has its
moments, but it's no coincidence that it is
nearly forgotten. |
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