Revenge

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 16, 1990

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

35	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

John Hartl

Hardly anyone comes off looking good in this glitzy and faintly ludicrous melodrama. [16 Feb 1990, p.34]

Mike Clark

If Costner's clout gets this 124-minute snooze even three weeks of business, dust off the Tom Cruise Cocktail award. [16 Feb 1990, p.4D]

Vincent Canby

A flaccid movie version of Jim Harrison's slightly less flaccid 1979 novella...The movie is soft and aimless. Revenge is the kind of film in which subsidiary characters and events are more interesting than anything the movie is supposed to be about. Even the brutality has no shock effect. Read full review

David Ansen

Inflated to more than two hours, spiced up with lyrical pseudeo-erotic sex scenes, Scott's Revenge is long on candlelight and billowing white curtains and short on emotional potency. [26 Feb 1990, p.66]

Owen Gleiberman

The trouble with Scott’s movies is that they’re not just star vehicles. They’re about the aesthetics of celebrity, about the narcissism that’s going on offscreen. If Revenge ends up knocking Costner down a peg, it’ll be just what he needs — and deserves. Read full review

Juan Carlos Coto

As expected, Kevin Costner is witty and personable in Revenge. The movie isn't nearly as charming. It overstays its welcome with a story that's not gripping enough to fill half its two-hour running time. [21 Feb 1990, p.D4]

Staff (Not Credited)

A brutal and brutally stupid thriller about brutal and brutally stupid people,[16 Feb 1990]

Hal Hinson

Tony Scott's Revenge is fascinating for one reason only -- as an example of full-scale, mega-star perversity. The star, in this case, is Kevin Costner, and there's a willfulness in the extremes to which he's gone here to alienate his public. Costner pitches his performance at his audience like a dare, as if he were seeing how far out on a limb it's willing to climb with him. Read full review

Hal Lipper

Revenge, adapted from Harrison's novella, is the sickest of male bonding movies. It is about friendship and betrayal, and how men must uphold their dignity at the expense of all else. Particularly women. [17 Feb 1990, p.1D]

Jay Boyar

Revenge isn't sweet. It's crude, ugly, pretentious, repulsive, obnoxious and just about unwatchable. Read full review

Joe Pollack

The screenplay, by Jim Harrison and Jeffrey Fiskin, from Harrison's novella, might have made a good B movie, but Scott refused to let that happen. He was out to make another A movie, and made an F movie that also is excessively and unnecessarily violent. [19 Feb 1990, p.5D]