RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Found a Bug? Squash It! Report Bugs Here
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / Upcoming / Revanche
Revanche

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Showtimes & Tickets
  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Visit Official Site External Icon
Bookmark and Share

Revanche (2009)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
94 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted:52

Fresh:49

Rotten:3

Average Rating:7.6/10

Consensus: With Revanche, Götz Spielmann has crafted a debut as surprising as it is suspenseful.

Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: At once a gripping thriller and a tragic drama of nearly Greek proportions, Revanche is the stunning, Oscar–nominated, international breakthrough film from Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann. In a... At once a gripping thriller and a tragic drama of nearly Greek proportions, Revanche is the stunning, Oscar–nominated, international breakthrough film from Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann. In a ragged section of Vienna, hardened ex-con Alex (the mesmerizing Johannes Krisch) works as an assistant in a brothel, where he falls for Ukrainian hooker Tamara (Irina Potapenko). Their desperate plans for escape unexpectedly intersect with the lives of a rural cop (Andreas Lust) and his seemingly content wife (Ursula Strauss). With meticulous, elegant direction, Spielmann creates a tense, existential, and surprising portrait of vengeance and redemption, and a journey into the darkest forest of human nature, in which violence and beauty exist side by side. --© Janus Films [More]

Starring: Ursula Strauss, Irina Potapenko, Johannes Krisch, Andreas Lust

Starring: Ursula Strauss, Irina Potapenko, Johannes Krisch, Andreas Lust

Director: Götz Spielmann

Director: Götz Spielmann
Screenwriter: Götz Spielmann
Studio: Janus Films

[See More Credits]

  • Trailers
  • Pictures
1 - 5 of 16

See More Movie Trailers & Pictures

Reviews for Revanche

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

The intricate plotting sometimes stretches credibility but exemplary performances from the entire cast and superlative camera work by Martin Gschlacht keep the ship afloat.

Full Review Source: Screen International | comment Comment
01/28/09
Dan Fainaru
Dan Fainaru
Screen International

The precise camera placement in every scene brings the audience an up-close and personal vantage point. The sights and sounds of nature play an integral part in the story.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | comment Comment
11/21/09
Keith Cohen
Keith Cohen
Entertainment Spectrum

Spielmann sets a tone of weary desperation and rarely strays from it. Not a happy film, but a gripping one.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
11/20/09
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

There's real biblical tragedy, and redemption, in Spielmann's fine, sad, suspenseful film.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
11/05/09
Steven Rea
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer

Artful, suspenseful and utterly engaging, Revanche is also challenging and arguably one of the most mature dramas to hit art houses this year.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
10/29/09
Steve Ramos
Steve Ramos
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Spielmann’s deft storytelling is coupled with immaculate compositions that constrain the characters as confidently as any prison bars.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
10/09/09
Marjorie Baumgarten
Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle

click to read the full review

Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses | comment Comment
09/11/09
Joseph Proimakis
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses

A film of carefully strained pulp and rigorously controlled intrigue, the Austrian revenge drama Revanche, which is really about the dividing line between vengeance and forgiveness, belongs to a neo-noir universe where all the classical genre laws apply.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
08/14/09
Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips
Chicago Tribune

So few characters in Hollywood thrillers ever feel real. The true achievement of Revanche may be that Spielmann's characters sometimes feel too much so.

Full Review Source: Movie Retriever | comment Comment
08/07/09
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico
Movie Retriever

Writer-director Gotz Spielmann (Antares) avoids the clutter and manipulation of most thrillers, escalating tension almost solely through the characters' turbulent emotions.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
08/07/09
Andrea Gronvall
Andrea Gronvall
Chicago Reader

Revanche involves a rare coming together of a male's criminal nature and a female's deep needs, entwined with a first-rate thriller.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
08/06/09
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The quiet cinematography by Martin Gschlacht underscores the film's emphasis on characters rather than action while placing the characters in very specific contexts...

Full Review Source: Playback:stl | comment Comment
07/31/09
Sarah Boslaugh
Sarah Boslaugh
Playback:stl

The title Revanche means 'retribution,' and this Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film is a European extract of neo-noir, like a Bavarian Body Heat or a Teutonic 21 Grams.

Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
07/30/09
Joe Williams
Joe Williams
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

It's undeniably effective and pretty engrossing. And there's something to be said for the unconventional way it sucks viewers in.

Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | comment Comment
07/16/09
Jeff Vice
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Unsettling and at the same time genuinely moving, it's a superb psychological thriller...remarkable for its meticulous creation of mood.

Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment Comment
07/03/09
Frank Swietek
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

The performers do terrifically understated work. Even in a scene of angry, anguished coupling, silence and stillness persist.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
06/26/09
Lisa Kennedy
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post

It can be a mite slow, but it's exquisitely crafted and deeply atmospheric, and it pays you amply for your patience.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
06/12/09
Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Oregonian

Johannes Krisch leads an effective cast. But it's writer-director Götz Spielmann who's truly the talent to watch.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
06/12/09
Stan Hall
Stan Hall
Oregonian

This cool, tense Austrian thriller follows a Ukrainian hooker and her petty criminal boyfriend as they try to escape their dead-end lives.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
06/05/09
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Revanche is an extraordinary film, mythic in feeling, about an ex-con who falls in love with a prostitute and how their lives intertwine fatefully with that of a policeman and his wife.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
06/05/09
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 >> >|
all

Latest News for Revanche

May 01, 2009: A mesmerizing masterpiece which eloquently meshes the raw, super-realism found in Eastern Promises with the manipulative, mental chess moves of David Mamet's House of Games. Opens in new window
More...

April 30, 2009: Critics Consensus: Wolverine Isn't Looking Too Sharp
This week at the movies, we've got everyone's favorite mutant (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman and Liev Schriber), a rake's progress (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,... More...

See All

More Movies

Coming Soon
Tomatometer Percentage Movie Date

arrow arrow Show more Show less

81% 81% Departures 04/12
79% 79% Disgrace 04/12
79% 79% Me and Orson Welles 04/12
66% 66% The Merry Gentleman 04/12
61% 61% The Girlfriend Experience 04/12
47% 47% The Box 04/12
15% 15% Planet 51 04/12
— The Descent: Part 2 04/12
— Cracks 04/12
— Paa 04/12

What’s Hot On RT

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

5 facts straight from the cast.

Disney Animation

Disney Animation

We chart the studio's classics.

Avatar

Avatar

An exclusive look at the human hardware.

Eric Bana

Eric Bana

The Star Trek star talks cars with RT.

Other News

  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Weekly Ketchup: Zombieland 2 in 3D?
42
  • First Look (Sort Of) at New Nightmare's Freddy Source: ShockTillYouDrop.com
24
  • First Look at Shrek Forever After Source: USA Today
48
  • Woody Harrelson Will Battle Zombies in 3-D Source: Moviehole
26
  • Natalie Portman Says Kat Denning Is in Thor Source: MTV
34
  • Disney Restructuring Has Broad Implications Source: Los Angeles Times
10
  • Joel Silver Talks Ninja Assassin, Sgt. Rock, Lobo, and More Source: Collider.com
1
  • Weekly Ketchup: Idris Elba cast in Thor, more Spider-Man 4 rumors
128
  • Idris Elba Joins Thor Source: Hollywood Reporter
112
  • Jackass 3D Coming in 2010? Source: Collider.com
32
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: New Moon Shatters Records
181
  • Total Recall: John Travolta's Best Movies
92
  • Ban Them All! 10 Infamously Controversial Movies
73
  • Friday Harvest: The Road, Avatar, and more!
70
  • 5 Facts About The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
68
  • Critics Consensus: Flee From Ninja Assassin
45
  • Five Favorite Films With Zombieland Director Ruben Fleischer
22
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
16
  • Weekly Ketchup: Zombieland 2 in 3D?
14
  • Duncan Jones Reteams With Kevin Spacey
2
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
16
  • Eric Bana talks Love the Beast - RT Interview
11
  • Fight Club Sound Designer Reflects on Film's 10th Anniversary
21
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
8
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
15
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus
21
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
8
  • Wolverine Creator Len Wein Talks About the Film
28
  • Gavin Hood Talks Wolverine; Possible Sequel
28
  • Duncan Jones talks Moon, Sam Rockwell, and Mute
14
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • Revanche at Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh Links

Featured
RT on YouTube
RT on YouTube External Link

Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.

RT on Twitter
RT on Twitter External Link

Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive | Green Pixels


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.