twhiteson From its unintelligible accents to its wretched miscasting to its overblown plot about lovers being separated by the chaos of war and revolution to its ridiculous location shots to its absurd portrayal of the American Revolution as a combination of the French Revolution and the Vietnam War, Hugh Hudson's "Revolution" is an absolute mess.It was also a critical and box-office bomb that hurt the careers of everyone involved in its making. Its director Hugh Hudson was briefly a hot commodity in the early 1980's thanks to his grossly over-rated "Chariots of Fire" somehow winning Best Picture in 1981. The disaster that was "Revolution" pretty much ended his career. It also put its writer Robert Dillon's career on hiatus. Its star, Al Pacino, was so embarrassed by it by that he stepped-away from film-acting for four years. It derailed the attempt to turn Nastassja Kinski into a bankable movie star. And even Donald Sutherland saw his career temporarily reduced to foreign and TV films in its aftermath. With the exceptions of 1956's "The Conqueror" and 1980's "Heaven's Gate," it's hard to name a movie that had a more catastrophic effect upon its cast and crew.What went wrong? Let's start with casting Al Pacino with his "Nu Yawk" accent as an 18th century fur trapper. Not good. Nor was it helped by its overlong and convoluted story of a father (Pacino) and his son being dragooned into the Continental Army and then meeting the revolutionary daughter (Kinski) of a wealthy NY Tory family before being separated "Gone with the Wind"-like by various tribulations and tragedies. Its "American Revolutionary" extras (one of them British pop singer Annie Lennox) carry-on as if they walked off the set of an adaption of "A Tale of Two Cities." Its British characters are absurd caricatures: the unintelligible sergeant major (Sutherland) and officers who are either foppish homosexuals or sadistic pedophiles. Further, for some reason American Indians (one of them young Graham Greene) are portrayed as being present in both armies at Yorktown. And it was filmed on locations in England and Norway that look NOTHING like the mid-Atlantic states its supposed to be set in. The coast of peninsular Virginia does not feature rocky cliffs!It's not only awful history, but just plain bad film-making with too many interminable scenes where characters are just mumbling into each other's ears.In sum: a truly terrible movie. I rarely give single star ratings, but "Revolution" richly deserves one considering how it's virtually unwatchable. Its sheer awfulness ruined and damaged careers and reputations.

SnoopyStyle It's 1776. France and England are in perpetual war. After the Declaration of Independence, British troops land in New York. Fur trapper Tom Dobb (Al Pacino) had lost most of his family. All he has left is his boat and his son. The revolutionaries confiscate his boat and they promise to pay him in gold in two weeks after the war is to end. His son Ned unwittingly signs up for the revolution and Tom is forced to join up to protect him. Daisy McConnahay (Nastassja Kinski) is the rebellious daughter of a rich New York family. She is drawn to the revolution and rebels against his war profiteering father. Sgt. Maj. Peasy (Donald Sutherland) is the ruthless English soldier who fights alongside his drummer boy son.The son is the brattiest of brats. Pacino is Italian to his core. There is no way to alleviate that and his natural accent doesn't help. Kinski is foreign in her accent and annoyingly arrogant in her rebellion. Of course, her family is horribly selfish. The British are cartoonish. The revolutionaries don't start off well either. It's an ugly world overall. The only compelling work comes from Sutherland who knows how to play his uncomprising role without becoming a caricature. It is interesting to depict the rebellion start with such an ugly mob. Usually they're more noble than that. That has to be a part of the reason why this movie bombed so badly. There are also other pressing problems.It's notable that the black actors barely speak a word. I'm sure the movie is trying to say a little something about slavery. In Philadelphia, the slaves are rising up as freedom rings out all around them but it's left confused. Obviously, none of them are freed in reality but it's not clear from the movie. I think the blacks being march off in the opposite direction is suppose to be them being sent into slavery in the south. I also have a problem with Pacino fighting off the two Indian scouts. It's barely believable and it would be easily solved if the friendly Indians arrive a minute earlier. They could help him kill the two Indian scouts. In addition, I don't understand why he doesn't go with his son at the end. He spends the entire movie rescuing his son but leaves him for the city life. That's stupid. I don't mind portraying the war as an ugly affair but this one is not that good.

Steffi_P After the Academy Awards, the most important awards ceremony is the Golden Raspberries (known as "Razzies") – the "worst of" counterpart to the Oscars. The thing about the Razzies is that they don't go for the literal worst movies of the year – otherwise they would give prizes to a load of trashy B-movies. Instead they bestow their honours upon the high profile flops, the movies that could have been so much more, the casts and crews who should have known better. Revolution stars Al Pacino, one of the greatest actors of his generation, and was directed by Hugh Hudson, he of 1981 Best Picture Chariots of Fire. And yet, in a stark "Oh how the mighty have fallen" scenario, it recouped less than two percent of its budget at the box office and was nominated for four Golden Raspberries.Revolution is not without promise. In contrast to the usual gung-ho attitude of pictures on this subject (cf. The Patriot), this takes an approach rare in historical pictures on any era, showing not the makers and shapers of change, but those unwillingly caught up in it. The Robert Dillon screenplay still ultimately comes down on the side of the revolutionaries, but it shows the conflict with the minimum of political emotiveness, and a storyline whose occasional poignancy comes from its even-handed intimacy. Director Hudson has excelled in creating tableaux that are full of believable bustle and period dirt, even if they were entirely shot in rainy England. There's a realistic melange of accents to be heard here; not just clipped British and broad American, which didn't really exist in any recognisable form at the time anyway. The credibility of some of the bit parts is very effective, such as the bolshy soldier who prods Pacino when he's chosen for the fox hunt, a slappable face if ever there was one.And yet the movie's the biggest flaws are on the same grounds. There are some woefully unrealistic and downright silly characterisations here. Chief among these is Nastassja Kinski's. While no means badly acted (in fact she does very well all things considered), the character as written is in no way believable. Not that you can't have rebellious and resourceful women, but stabbing a man in the nadgers at a soirée is a bit hard to swallow. It would probably have warranted her a stint in an asylum, and certainly more than just a telling off from her mother. And giving the Englishman in question a stupid nasal voice and cartoonish demeanour was a huge mistake. It all seems totally at odds with the realism elsewhere in the movie. There are problems too with the over-earnest attempt at a documentary look. Hudson's constant use of hand-held camera quickly becomes tiresome. Pacino's performance is heartfelt but there are times when he appears to break into improvisation yet comes across too much as the modern New Yorker.In response to its poor reception, Hudson would later revisit the material for a 2009 special edition appropriately titled Revolution Revisited, and it is this version of the movie which I have seen. Apparently around ten minutes of footage was shorn off (I don't know what this was so can't comment), and they added narration by Pacino, written and recorded ad hoc. This latter was to my mind a mistake – it adds nothing, basically spelling out the character's thoughts at any given moment, even though the essence of them is already there on the screen. It somewhat spoils the taciturn moodiness of the character, as well as the chaotic wordlessness of some scenes. It's nice however to be able to enjoy a decent new transfer of the picture, because it really isn't as bad as its reputation (and those Razzie nominations, all of which it lost to Rambo II, I hasten to add) would suggest. It is incredibly moving at times, a high point being Pacino's desperate comforting of Ned as his foot wound is cauterized. It's also beautifully shot. This is ultimately a movie of two sides – the very good and the very bad, with no middle ground of mediocrity. And this is very frustrating, because you can see just how easily it could have been a masterpiece.

rockcraft I have always considered this film a masterpiece and long have regretted that it was so lost on jaded American audiences. I was very pleased to hear that it was finally going to be released on DVD. I was very disturbed soon after however to hear that the director, Hugh Hudson, has decided to butcher his own film in this version by cutting the last ten minutes of the original. Notwithstanding that some, not me, believed the original ending was somewhat hokey, for me this long, traveling camera shot, a complex crowd scene, is one of the most amazing pieces of cinematography in the history of film. I can't recall a piece of film footage that is more memorable. I have tried to describe it to many friends over the years. That it has now been lost is heartbreaking. It does not even sound like they left it as an extra on the DVD.