Product Details

• Actors: Kevin Costner, Anthony Quinn, Madeleine Stowe, Miguel Ferrer, Tomas Milian
• Directors: Tony Scott
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: July 8, 1994
• Run Time: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301735048
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #552 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This often grisly, arguably racist movie stars Kevin Costner as a U.S. Navy pilot who is the improbable friend of a powerful, vaguely criminal Mexican millionaire (Anthony Quinn). While visiting the latter on his estate, Costner's character has an affair with his host's gorgeous young wife (Madeline Stowe), for which he is almost beaten to death and the wife mutilated and turned into a junkie prostitute (nice, eh?). The hero seeks retaliation, and you may want the same against director Tony Scott, who makes the navy sequences look like beefcake excerpts from his earlier hit film, Top Gun. However, if you can stand the garishness, then perhaps the extreme violence won't be too bothersome, either. But expect a rough time either way. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Savaged By Critics, But Still Good!, September 13, 2000

By	John Noodles (A Field in ND, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revenge (DVD)

I've never been able to understand the beef critics had with this movie. Yes, it's violent. Seeing Madeleine Stowe's character turned into a heroin-addicted prostitute is hard to watch. But does this make it a bad movie? Or is it bad because Costner's character seeks revenge, and offs some bad guys? I suspect that Stowe's character's fate has most to do with why this movie was so broadly panned. Much of this movie is brutal. Is this worse, though, than showing violence that doesn't seem to hurt? Gunfights in which the heroes get shot and just shake it off? I don't think so. The violence in this movie is brutal because the story demands it.

There isn't more to say, probably, than has already been said, but I found the narrative well-paced, the characters believeable, and the story compelling. The final confrontation was wholly plausible, and the right denouement for the film: both redemptive and logical given what we know about the characters.

This is a sadly underrated movie, one well-worth seeing.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Man's Man Moovy..., August 24, 2002

By	yygsgsdrassil "yygsgsdrassil" (Crossroads America) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Revenge (DVD)

...Costner's character did not want to go down that road, but the lady of the house was beautiful and he couldn't help himself. Stowe wanted to remember what love felt like: she was being kept by the Latin aristocratic ancien regime
figure Anthony Quinn (in full Onassis mode), who loved her like a caged canary which is admired from outside the cage...

So, Costner, the pilot, and Stowe (the nearest thing this Mexican land has to Evita) plans The Getaway, The Tryst, The Tete-a-tete...and just when they feel the world couldn't be any more heavenly, WHAM! Quinn and his men beat Costner within inches to death, they shoot the dog, they slash Stowe's beautiful face in half and throw Costner out in the road somewhere and Stowe in the Bordello so any one with the price to have her, can have their way.

And that would've probably been the end of the story, except Costner had fallen for the lady which has made him lose so much.
He wants to find her and he wants to get in touch with these dirty rats who did this to them. And he goes thru hell and high water to get to that point.

This isn't exactly a quick-edit, fire and explosions action flick. It moves slow. In fact, some critics say it moves too slow. But mebbe them guys didn't get it. It's slow and gritty and dusty and muggy and foggy as those days in Mexico can get. It has some breath taking camera work of the Mexican country side and some equally effective shots of lowlife in Mexican border towns. There are scenes which make you feel like you should get up and take a shower, they are so musty and full of sweat. And there is so much about honor between men. And dishonor between men.

And, to me that's the point.

And, like in real life, in the end, the boy gets the girl, but at a great price.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's Not to Love?, January 31, 2005

By	Jill M. Santuccio - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Revenge (DVD)

I was recently in a staff meeting where we had to share our all-time favorite movie. I am a movie-aholic and this is among my top five. Why? Not because most people drool over Kevin Costner (he doesn't do much for me, actually). It's because it is the only movie I've seen 30 or more times that can STILL make me cry as hard as I did the first time I saw it. Anthony Quinn is a film god and always will be, 'nuff said. As for Madeline Stowe, I just wish she would make more movies for she is truly an underrated (and undercast) gem. I don't buy into what critics and some other reviewers here apparently dislike. It is what it is ... violence and spousal abuse notwithstanding ... that's just part of the movie and I suppose, part of that culture. But as for a TRUE love story with a final scene that will make you boo hoo out loud, this one cannot be beat! Grab the Kleenex ...