REVENGE

(director/writer: Coraline Fargeat; cinematographer: Robrecht Heyvaert; editors: Fargeat, Bruno Safar, Jerome Eltabet; music: Robin Coudert ; cast: Matilda Lutz (Jen), Kevin Janssens (Richard), Vincent Columbe (Stan), Guillaume Bouchede (Dimitri); Runtime: 108; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Marc-Etienne Schwartz, Marc Stanimirovic, Jean-Yves Robin; Monkey Pack Films; 2017-France-in English and French with English subtitles)

“If you can live with such a graphically violent film, you got yourself a bloody good one.“

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A well-conceived sordid exploitation rape-revenge pulp-thriller. It’s directed and written with a mixture of playful glee and angry passion by French filmmaker Coraline Fargeat, in her feature film debut, who gets by depicting two-dimensional characters in a vigorous crowd-pleasing film with a blood-splattered payback sequence. It should become a classic cult film for those into full-flavored grindhouse.

Upon its release it made the rounds as a popular Midnight Movie. That such an excessively violent film is directed by a woman, also makes it rare. Arriving by helicopter to some nameless isolated desert area (it was shot in Morocco) is the hot young Jen (Matilda Lutz) and her lover, a married, wealthy and smug businessman named Richard (Kevin Janssens). They settle into his isolated luxury house with a giant pool, and Richard gets a quickie in the bedroom. Soon after Richard’s lowlife hunting friends, Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchede), arrive before expected and catch Jen’s exotic poolside dance while attired in a sexy-pink I Love L.A. T-shirt. The next day while Richard’s in town getting things up the TV volume. When Richard returns, he is angry with Stan but insults Jen by offering her compensation instead of sympathy. Richard turns ugly when she threatens to tell his wife and ruin him. The three men chase her as she tries to flee by foot and they attempt to beat her to death. But she survives despite a tree branch impaled in her is sticking out of her stomach and vows payback when she miraculously recovers. When the men learn she survives, they decide to hunt her down separately. That’s another bad decision the hunters make, as she peels them off one at a time just a few days after the incident.

There is nothing subtle here, as the film tells us it will do as its title says. The dehumanizing bastards will get it in the end, as Jen finds her hunter-warrior mojo and takes them all out of their miserable lives in a satisfying primitive way that the justice system can’t do. If you can live with such a graphically violent film, you got yourself a bloody good one.

REVIEWED ON 8/11/2018 GRADE: B      https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/