MOVIE REVIEW : Saga of Ex-Navy Pilot Flies Off the Mark in ‘Revenge’

Tony Scott’s “Revenge” (citywide) opens with zoomy fly-by footage of Navy pilot joyboys zipping through the upper atmosphere. Was Scott trying to induce flashbacks in the audience of his last aerorama epic, “Top Gun,” or did the producers think this sequence would work well as the movie’s trailer? Kevin Costner’s Cochran, a Vietnam vet about to hang up his goggles as a Navy pilot, is flying his last mission and, for the rest of the movie, he never gets any higher off the ground than a pick-up truck.

A few more fly-bys might have picked up the pace a bit. The plot for “Revenge,” based on Jim Harrison’s 1978 novella, seems ideal for a great galvanizing pulp thriller, but the movie bogs down in melodramatic murk. It’s about what happens when Cochran, visiting the sprawling compound of a powerful and rich friend, the Mexican millionaire overlord Tibey (Anthony Quinn), falls desperately in love with his wife, Miryea (Madeleine Stowe). These two are in a state of slow melt-down from the time they first clap eyes on each other--James M. Cain would have given them his Bad Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

When the inevitable couplings occur, the inevitable retribution follows. “Revenge” is big on inevitability, and that’s one of its problems. The way it’s been done, the film’s primal vengeance theme doesn’t hold too many surprises. Reacting to the film is like waiting for the punch line of a joke you’ve heard many times before.

For a while, the familiarity has a companionable echo. The feints and parries of the two ga-ga seducers have a languorous sexiness. There’s a tingly sense of erotic expectation in their initial scenes together, even when they’re prattling on about Garcia Lorca’s poetry or trying to make lemonade. “Revenge” didn’t have to be good--bad/good would have been enjoyable too, and, for its first half, that’s just what it is. The swoony ardor at its core is basically trash-novel stuff, but that can be kind of fun, once you’ve adjusted downward your heightened expectations.

Once the revenge drama sets in, though, the plot gets lost in entanglements of digressions. Some of them, like a protracted sequence between Cochran and a grizzled Texan (James Gammon), have a Peckinpah-like grungy ribaldry. (And it helps that Gammon has a voice that sounds like corrugated tar paper.)

Quinn has some touching moments, but Costner loses his edge as the film meanders along. The qualities that make him a romantic hero are at odds with the stalk-and-kill steam-heat that the role ultimately requires. And Madeleine Stowe, lovely as she is, doesn’t bring much acting heat to her role. You’ve heard of Body by Jake? With her wide, heavily lipsticked mouth front and center in practically every scene, she’s more like Acting by Maybelline.

Tony Scott, adapting a script by Harrison and Jeffrey Fiskin, may not have known what to do with these actors even if there was more heft to their roles. He’s big on swooping camera moves and landscapes that look like colorized Ansel Adams stills. In the movie’s scheme, the actors are just part of the decor. It’s an unsatisfying approach. Pulp movies, even fancy ones, should be made by directors with a bit of pulp in their souls.