Kabbalah and Revolver

Run away from the Light, Carol Anne!

When Avner started to talk about “Metaphysical DNA” in the broadest terms possible, I found it hard to concentrate. I hate it when people mix terms to convey a confusing metaphor. When the leader of an instructional lecture does this in an attempt to win my loyalty and fellowship it is even worse. I had come to the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles to learn more about the phenomenon known as Kabbalah and what role it played in prevented me from enjoying Guy Ritchie’s latest movie: Revolver. Terms like “Metaphysical DNA,” “Light Force of God,” and “Technology for the Soul ^tm” didn’t help my quest, even if they are trademarked. About 15 people hungry for happiness, success, love, connection, and spirituality surrounded me in the small room, but I just wanted to get my jollies by watching a gangster movie starring Ray Liotta, Jason Statham, and Andre Benjamin. Cinema is my God, and I’m also addicted to gambling, so when one of my favorite directors has made a movie about gambling I want to know where the fuck it is! I don’t want “Technology for the soul.” My soul was long ago exchanged for a snow day that allowed me to see Empire Strikes Back (1980) when it premiered in Boston. Salvation is no longer an option. All I want is my movie fix. But between conception and distribution, Ritchie’s third feature film has been derailed by a bizarre controversy.

What controversy? Well, in early 2000 Guy Ritchie was on top of the world. His first feature, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) had become the third highest grossing British film of all time. He had just released Snatch (2000), which features some of the grandest ensemble acting ever. On top of it all, Ritchie had fathered a son, Rocco, with his soon to be wife: Madonna. It’s like he won four lotteries in a row. So what is the problem? The problem is that Madonna has reinvented herself more times than Pepsi. And around the time she married Ritchie she had decided to reinvent herself as a fucking prophet! Hell, she could wear a purple straightjacket and worship street sweeping equipment and I would still marry her, so I can’t blame Ritchie for coming under her spell. But if I were a film director and the Material Messiah asked me to glorify street sweeping equipment in my movies, I would have to draw the line. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, Ritchie and Madonna made Swept Away (2002), which fails on so many levels I wonder if Ritchie’s 2 year-old son didn’t direct it. If you take a pile of shit and bake it in the oven then you don’t have a pie. You have warm shit. Swept Away is warm shit. But Cinemaphiles can excuse the occasional flop. M. Night Shyamalan made the awful Signs (2002), for instance. George Lucas made Attack of the Clones (2002). Kevin Smith made…actually Kevin Smith can’t be forgiven for any of his films. Anyway, no filmmaker is perfect, especially when his wife has obviously influenced his decisions, as was the case with Swept Away. But when Ritchie decided to return to his roots with another ensemble British/Gangster/Gambling/Guns/Laughs movie, I was thrilled. The trilogy would be complete. Life was good. Then the sky fell.

As early as 2003, Ritchie encountered trouble finding a studio to support Revolver. References to Kabbalah in the script made studios like Sony back off. Ritchie’s reps at The William Morris Agency asked him to rewrite the script without the Kabbalah plugs. Ritchie agreed and then almost immediately fired his reps and signed on at the pro-Kabbalah Creative Artists Agency, which also happens to represent Madonna. See a pattern? Aside from complicating my movie fix, this was something almost never seen in Hollywood: A director sticking to his principals at the cost of his marketability. Ritchie basically had to choose between the most powerful agency in Los Angeles and his belief in the value of Kabbalah. He chose Kabbalah and made the film that he wanted to make. But you can make the best pizza on a deserted island and you’ll still need someone to carry it to the mainland. Jesus had his disciples to write the bible, but no studio wanted to be the courier for Ritchie’s contaminated message. Sony’s position was this: Kill and maim as many people as you want, but do not mention Kabbalah.

Now, there is nothing in either of Ritchie’s first two films that references any religion or system of belief. No branch of theology can claim the moral, “Crime doesn’t pay.” So what happened between 2000 and 2003 to make Ritchie a born again Kabbalist? He became a father and married Madonna. Madonna had embraced Kabbalah as early as 1998 when she released her Ray of Light album, which contains a multitude of Kabbalah platitudes hidden in the trip-hop electronica. “Quicker than a ray of light she’s flying,” Is one such innocuous reference in the title track. No tweaker on the floor of a club in London is going to be offended by it. As long as the music rocks, Warner Brothers execs couldn’t care a wit if Madonna plugged Kabbalah or Falun Gong. The track Shanti/Ashtangi is a blatantly religious circular chant, but who cares! Madonna is hot! Movies, however, are a completely different media. As a visual art, nothing can be overlooked. Everything is supposed to serve the story. Apparently, Ritchie is the only one who believes Kabbalah serves a “Revenge thru gambling” scenario. Go figure. Before deciding myself if Kabbalah didn’t belong, I decided to learn what Kabbalah is.

“Kabbalah is the ultimate communicator and the ultimate transformer. It translates the meaning of the universe and transforms its strengths directly to you. It is a workable system that reveals a wisdom so powerful that it allows you to understand your purpose for being here-so you can experience the joy you were put on Earth to have. Kabbalah wants to ensure that you get it. In fact, that’s what Kabbalah means – to get.”

According to the pamphlet “Getting Kabbalah”, Kabbalah is a communicator, a transformer, a translator, a belief system, wisdom, a path to wisdom, a power, a light, a tree, energy, a social support group, a personal motivator, a way to get rich, a way to accept being rich, a verb, a noun, and the only true path to universal harmony. Did I leave anything out? I hope not. In short, Kabbalah is just a term used to describe what is missing from your life and how to get it. Convincing me that I was missing something from my life seemed to be the sole purpose of the instructional lecture I attended at the Beverly Hills Kabbalah Center. By the end of it most people were signing up for a $270, 10-week class called “The Power of Kabbalah.” And why not? Apparently Kabbalah would solve all their problems. And I mean all their problems. If they weren’t rich, they would become rich. If they were already rich then they would learn to be happy and rich. If they were already happy and rich but not in love then they would find love. If they were fat they would get thin. If they were already thin then they would be happy and thin. The list of benefits doesn’t end because dissatisfaction is, last I checked, a human condition with infinite variations. Kabbalah is a belief system that has packaged itself as a cure-all spiritual elixir. It is one of the most accommodating belief systems I have ever encountered. “You can eat what you want, drive what you want, work where you want, and be devoted to any religion,” said Avner with a smile. I could almost hear him say, “The fat will melt off while you sleep.” You don’t have to change. The changes will come from within, miraculously channeling the power of the universe into your everyday life and transforming you into a super-powerful agent of Light...allegedly.

These are the tantalizing benefits that Madonna must have offered Ritchie in the early years of their marriage. Ritchie started attending lectures and donating money and researching what he called, “The scientific side of Kabbalah” around the time he began pre-production for Revolver. Naturally, aspects of this theological skeleton key found their way into his script. Aspects such as numerology, astrology and self-actualization found a curious home among the gamblers, gangsters, kingpins and hookers Ritchie had written into his movie. Instead of changing the script, he changed agents. Was it the right choice?

Following the September 11, 2005 preview at the Toronto Film Festival and the Sept. 20, 2005 London premier, it appears that Ritchie had not made the right decision. Critics were almost unanimously appalled.

"Ritchie tells his story so incoherently and indolently - and with such an alienating air of self-congratulation - that Revolver becomes first annoying, then exasperating, and eventually unbearable," writes the Daily Mail’s Christopher Tookey.

David Edwards of London’s Daily Mirror said he found Revolver "so incredibly, absurdly, breathtakingly awful, I wanted to buy a revolver so I could shoot the projectionist before turning the gun on myself."

Variety.com film critic Todd Mccarthy pans every aspect of Revolver from the “tacky production design, rather grubby lensing” to Ritchie’s “ill-advised overlay of pretension.”

Plans to release Revolver in the United States were quickly scrapped as producers scrambled to keep the ship afloat. Instead of gambling with a national distribution with empty seats, Revolver would go straight to rental store shelves.

A silver lining to these clouds is that the reviewers are obviously treating Ritchie as a serious filmmaker. Like me, they want Ritchie to achieve his potential. He must be judged by the standards he is capable of. Kevin Smith can abuse all the 35mm film he wants and no one is going to care because Smith has no talent. To intelligently discuss a Kevin Smith film is to give it too much credit. But Guy Ritchie is a like franchise pitcher who walks the bases loaded. The insane irony is that Kabbalah is supposed to have the exact opposite results. Instead of causing a clumsy, fragmented, flop that ends up with Busty Anal Adventures (2002) in the straight to DVD category, Kabbalah was supposed to enable Ritchie to reach more people with his films and garner more praise. Reality Check: Kabbalah isn’t working.

In one family, you find Kabbalah’s greatest success story, and greatest failure. Madonna can do no wrong. Her “Ray of Light” album was one of her highest grossing, and best made albums of her career. Ritchie, on the other hand, has made two consecutive straight to DVD films and was booed at the premier of his own movie.

Gossip rag reports of Ritchie turning his back on Kabbalah are strictly rumors. If Ritchie goes ahead with plans for an Israel-based documentary about Kabbalah then it would be safe to say the rumors are not true. If he dives into another feature project that doesn’t star Madonna and is purely commercial then Ritchie has at least separated his professional and spiritual life. Kabbalah wants to be everything to everybody, but it can only do any harm if you, like Guy Ritchie, take it seriously.

The film’s official website, http://www.revolverthemovie.co.uk/ claims the DVD will be released on March 6th, seven months after the film was supposed to be released in theaters. A trailer, available on the site, looks beautiful. Ray Liotta growls, “No crack heads with sticks acting like silly fucking gangsters.” Jason Statham is his grim self. The sets look extraordinary. The film definition is superb. Still, with all the troubles theaters have had filling seats, it is unlikely a gamble will ever be taken on putting Revolver before large audiences.

Revolver

Written and directed by Guy Ritchie

Starring: Ray Liotta, Jason Statham, Andre Benjamin, Vincent Pastore

Extras: Commentary, cast interviews, making of Revolver, out-takes, deleted scenes.