Review by Tristan Bishop
I was quite excited when Revenge For Jolly first popped onto my radar. Firstly the title caught my eye – not a great, snappy, evocative title by any means, but quirky enough to have my attention and make me ponder as to the nature of the film. Turns out it’s being marketed as a quirky, gory black comedy thriller. Well, I like quirk, I like thrillers, I like gore, and I’m not adverse to a spot of black comedy when done well. The next thing that hooked me was the cast – Elijah Wood, Ryan Phillipe and Kirsten Wiig are all listed. OK, this was looking like a classier prospect than your average low budget horror film – A-list actors don’t usually appear in shoddy indie productions, after all. So I settled down on my sofa with a cup of coffee and some snacks ready for some fun.
The significance of the title soon became clear. Jolly is a tiny dog. A dog owned by Harry (Brian Petsos, who also wrote and produced), a small time crook who owes money to people, and takes great pains to tell the audience (in voice-over) that he’s not a bad guy really. He loves Jolly for instance, and his best buddy Cecil (Oscar Isaac). Unfortunately for Harry, one day he comes home to find Jolly murdered, presumably as a consequence of not paying his debts. Harry is so overcome by grief that he immediately rounds up Cecil to help him track down Jolly’s murderer and make them pay.
It’s a simple plot, for sure, but then most revenge films are. However, whilst the best revenge films put their character through the emotional wringer, forcing the audience to identify with and cheer them on, Jolly is dead within the first few minutes, and the rest of the film is basically variations on the same scene – Harry and Oscar turn up at a place to question someone, and end up killing them, ranging from a bartender to an entire wedding party. Inbetween they drink endless beers, pop pills, smoke a little weed, and eat some Mexican food. That’s literally it. The promised name actors turn out to be cameos as the people the duo question and slaughter (Elijah Wood giving the best turn as the nervous, doomed bartender). Presumably they are all good friends of Petsos, as it’s unbelievable to think they would have signed on after being impressed with the script, which is repetitive, tonally confusing, and remarkably unfunny for something being pitched as a black comedy. I’m pretty certain we’re meant to identify with the main characters, but they come across as unlikeable arseholes, without an ounce of personality between them – not helped by a total lack of screen presence from either Petsos or Isaac.
On the upside, the technical aspects of the film are very impressive – Petsos obviously either had a decent budget or lots of connections, as the editing, cinematography and music are all very good. The music especially is worthy of mention – a nice, unusual electro rock effort from UK musician Whitey. Unfortunately no amount of techincal skill can make a film with dull situations, unlikeable characters and a lack of suspense interesting. Added to that, there’s not even much gore, save some bullet holes. There is a nice cameo from Kevin Corrigan of Some Guy Who Kills People (a Brutal As Hell favourite), but this only serves to remind us how a black comedy should be done. There’s even an ending which had me wanting to throw things at my TV. I would call it anti-climatic, but that would suggest there was some feeling of events building up towards something exciting, and there isn’t. Avoid.
Revenge for Jolly comes to Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray on 14th April 2014, from Anchor Bay.