New Release Birb: Revenge

Revenge
Starring: Matilda Lutz and Kevin Janssens
Written and Directed by Coralie Fargeat
US Release Date: May 11th, 2018
My First Viewing: May 11th, 2018

French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat makes her feature-length debut in Revenge, starring Matilda Lutz, Kevin Janssens, and Vincent Colombe.

Lutz plays Jen, the mistress of Janssens' Richard who is brought to a remote desert for an annual hunting trip. Things go array when Stan (Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchede) join the duo and gaze at Jen like fourteen-year-old high school freshmen who get their first erections. Stan takes it a step too far and rapes Jen while Richard is away, with Dimitri allowing it to happen. After Richard returns, he's afraid that Jen will tell his wife about the affair. Jen escapes and a chase through the desert ensues, with Richard pushing Jen off a cliff leaving her for dead. Except she doesn't die, with the events of what occurred completely changing who she was.

This is an intense and graphic film that relies heavily on Lutz, and she delivers in spades. Although she has very little dialogue in the movie, her actions and facials come off as a more than suitable replacement. The three men come off as realistic bastards for wanting to kill Jen, even though they're completely in the wrong for their actions.

This was a film I missed when attending TIFF last year and showed as a Midnight Madness movie, and it shows why it was perfect for that type of rabid audience. The violence is beyond gory, with a couple scenes that I had to turn away from due to their graphic nature. The finale, which is a chase between Jen and Richard is a bloodbath that Quentin Tarantino
would think goes a little too far.

This is a great film that deals with the tough subject of rape-revenge. While there was more than one time during the film I questioned the realistic nature of what was going on, I had to remember that this was a genre film and it wasn't about whether or not something was realistic, and it didn't detour from the overall experience. If 2016's Raw is something you could handle given its subject matter and graphic nature, then this is something you should give a chance.

Revenge is rated R for strong graphic violence, a rape, sexual content, and graphic nudity.

What were your thoughts on Revenge? Follow me on twitter and facebook and let me know what you think.

-birb

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