MR. MADONNA TONES IT DOWN

Don't run away with the idea that Revolver is just another forumulaic thugs-with-guns flick from the mind of Guy Ritchie. Oh, no, this time it's different: it's a caring movie:

"I like to think there's justification for the punishment inflicted. It's not gratuitous.

"I wanted one person to get their ear shot off but I had to scrap it."

See? It's not just violence for violence's sake, it's punishment. And who can complain about guys being shot providing it's being done as a kangaroo court handing out summary justice.

We're not sure how he squares his wife's ("his") mystical belief system with this Blind Beggar approach to morality - Krayballah, is it?

It's not quite clear why, if this film isn't just a dull gangster geezer flick, it was felt the appropriate way to promote it would be a thirty-two sheet poster depicting gangster geezers waving guns around on the site of a fatal shooting. Perhaps there's a twist in the tale?

Ritchie's film - which he dragged his wife off her sick bed to try and shore up the prepublicity at the Toronto Film Festival - may have set out careful to avoid the glorification of violence, but even on its first showing it has inspired acts of evisceration and several instances of assasination. Admittedly, these are all from the reviewers, and, clearly, they're sure they have justification for the punishment:

[Dismissed as a] "convoluted, risibly overwrought muddle" by one US magazine. Screen International also warned viewers would be left "bewildered and disappointed" by what the Hollywood Reporter described as "pretentious style and fractured storytelling". Hollywood Reporter reviewer Kirk Honeycutt adds: "The movie spins wildly in circles, continually doubling back on itself, repeating scenes - once even backward - and lines of dialogue until a viewer loses a grip on what is supposed to be real."

We had wondered how he was going to spin out the same thin idea to fill another couple of hours of screen time - re-running scenes seems to be pretty inspired.

The shame of it all, though, is that Andre 3000 has got himself muddled up in all this.

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