What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Earlier today, If you were having trouble getting to sleep around one in the morning, you could have turned over to TCM and watched the 1990 action film, Revenge.
Revenge is an almost absurdly masculine film about two men who are in love with the same woman and who, as a result, end up trying to kill each other and a lot of other people.
Jay Cochran (Kevin Costner) is a U.S. Navy aviator who, when we first see him, is doing the whole Top Gun thing of flying in a fast jet and making jokes while his navigator worries about dying. Interestingly enough, Top Gun and Revenge were both directed by Tony Scott so perhaps this opening scene was meant to be a self-reference. Well, regardless of intent, it’s a scene that goes on forever. This is Jay’s last flight, as he’s due to retire. We go through an extended retirement party, where everyone has a beer and Jay gives one of those bullshit sentimental speeches that men always give in films like this.
Jay has been invited to estate of Tibbey (Anthony Quinn), who is a Mexican gangster. Tibbey and Jay are apparently old friends, though it’s never quite explained how the youngish Jay knows the not-very-youngish Tibbey. Tibbey is one of those gangster who is incapable of doing anything without first talking about what an amazing journey it’s been, going from poverty to becoming one of the most powerful men in Mexico.
Tibbey apparently wants to play tennis with Jay and take him hunting. Jay decides that he’d rather have an affair with Tibbey’s much younger wife, Miryea (Madeleine Stowe). Miryea is upset that Tibbey doesn’t want to have children because he feels that pregnancy would ruin her body. When Tibbey finds out about the affair, he sends Miryea to a brothel and Jay to the middle of the desert. That’s Tibbey’s revenge!
Except, of course, Jay doesn’t die because he’s Kevin Costner and if he died, the movie would end too quickly. So, Jay fights his way back from the desert, intent on not only finding Miryea but getting his own revenge on Tibbey!
(It’s hard to take a bad guy named Tibbey seriously, even if he is played by Anthony Quinn.)
Revenge goes on for way too long and neither Tibbey nor Jay are really sympathetic enough to be compelling characters. You never really believe in Tibbey and Jay’s friendship, so the whole betrayal and revenge aspect of the film just falls flat. On the plus side, youngish Kevin Costner is not half as annoying as cranky old man Costner. Anthony Quinn was one of the actors who was considered for the role of Don Corleone in The Godfather and, watching him here, you can kind of see him in the role. He would have been a bit of a crude Corleone but Quinn had an undeniably powerful and magnetic screen presence. In Revenge, Quinn chews up and spits out all of the scenery and is not subtle at all but it’s entertaining to watch him because he’s Anthony Quinn.
Anyway, Revenge ends with a tragedy, as these things often do. Anthony Quinn never says, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” and that, to me, is a true missed opportunity.
Previous Insomnia Files:
- Story of Mankind
- Stag
- Love Is A Gun
- Nina Takes A Lover
- Black Ice
- Frogs For Snakes
- Fair Game
- From The Hip
- Born Killers
- Eye For An Eye
- Summer Catch
- Beyond the Law
- Spring Broke
- Promise
- George Wallace
- Kill The Messenger
- The Suburbans
- Only The Strong
- Great Expectations
- Casual Sex?
- Truth
- Insomina
- Death Do Us Part
- A Star is Born
- The Winning Season
- Rabbit Run
- Remember My Name
- The Arrangement
- Day of the Animals
- Still of The Night
- Arsenal
- Smooth Talk
- The Comedian
- The Minus Man
- Donnie Brasco
- Punchline
- Evita
- Six: The Mark Unleashed
- Disclosure
- The Spanish Prisoner
- Elektra
Pingback: Insomnia File #43: Legend (dir by Brian Helgeland) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Lisa’s Week In Review: 10/21/19 — 10/27/19 | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #44: Cat Run (dir by John Stockwell) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #45: The Pyramid (dir by Gary Kent) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #46: Enter the Ninja (dir by Menahem Golan) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #47: Downhill (dir by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #49: Mystery Date (dir by Jonathan Wacks) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #50: Zola (dir by Janicza Bravo) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #51: Ira & Abby (dir by Robert Clary) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #52: The Next Karate Kid (dir by Christopher Cain) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #53: A Nightmare on Drug Street (dir by Traci Wald Donat) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 54: Jud (dir by Gunther Collins) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 55: FTA (dir by Francine Parker) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #56: Exterminators of the Year 3000 (dir by Giuliano Carmineo) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #57: Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (dir by Thomas Hamilton) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #58: The Haunting of Helen Walker (dir by Tom McLoughlin) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #59: True Spirit (dir by Sarah Spillane) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #60: Project Kill (dir by William Girdler) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Horror Insomnia File #61: Replica (dir by James Nguyen) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Horrific Insomnia File #62: Rollergator (dir by Donald G. Jackson) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Horrific Insomnia File #63: Hillbillys in a Haunted House (dir by Jean Yarbrough) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #64: Once Upon A Midnight Scary (dir by Nell Cox) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #65: Girl Lost (dir by Robin Bain) | Through the Shattered Lens