In a desperate attempt to improve life for his prostitute girlfriend, Tamara, ex-con Alex returns to a life of crime and robs a bank. He plans to flee to the South with his girl after the robbery. But something terrible happens and revenge seems inevitable.
Gotz Speilmann's film is well-made, aptly characterised and seems frighteningly true to life.
Film Comment Magazine
July 01, 2013
"It works because Spielmann has established that we're not watching belabored dramatic trajectories collide, but an encounter between two people in miles-away mindsets."
The plot might have yielded a generic erotic thriller if Revanche were made by rougher hands. Instead it becomes something more sophisticated thanks to the efforts of writer-director Götz Spielmann and a superb cast.
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.
Chicago Reader
August 07, 2009
Writer-director Gotz Spielmann (Antares) avoids the clutter and manipulation of most thrillers, escalating tension almost solely through the characters' turbulent emotions.
More character study than thriller (the title means "revenge"), this slow-burning Austrian film effectively holds our interest with its unpredictable plot, even though it's not easy to care where it's going.
