10 Gangster Movies That Mess With Your Brain
4. Revolver (2005)
A bizarre hybrid of Matrix-style cod-philosophising, melodramatic cod-opera and stylish English cod-gangster movie, this was Guy Ritchie's fourth feature film and by far his most ambitious (that's if you dont count trying to make an actress out of Madonna in Swept Away).
Jake Green has spent his seven year prison sentence with two men in the cells on either side of him, a chess genius and a con man, who claim to have discovered The Formula, a technique that will allow the user to win any game they play.
When he is released, he uses The Formula to exact revenge against the mob boss that put him there but he appears to be dying of a rare blood disease, and more than one person seems to be trying to kill him
That premise doesn't begin to delve into the twisted plotting and labyrinthine narrative Ritchie's trying - with limited success - to put over in Revolver. But fair play to the man for trying, as even at its most laboured, Revolver is a mind-bender of a movie, subverting every trope of the kind of lazy crime thriller that Ritchie made his name with.
A treatise on the nature of the ego and the power of letting go of what which controls you, Revolver is confusing but never confused, often baffling but never bullsh*t.