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| Critics savage Ritchie's new film Director Guy Ritchie's latest gangster film Revolver has received stinging criticism in its first reviews. His wife Madonna wore a sling as she accompanied him to the world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday. But Screen International declared it a "convoluted, risibly overwrought muddle" that would leave audiences "bewildered and disappointed". And the Hollywood Reporter laid into its "pretentious style and fractured storytelling". It is Ritchie's first film since Swept Away, which won five Razzie Awards - for Hollywood's worst offerings - in 2003. Revolver features a criminal who revives a feud with a gangland boss and stars Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Andre 3000 of hip-hop group OutKast. Screen International's critic Allan Hunter wrote it was unlikely to revive Ritchie's fortunes. Fans of Ritchie's first film, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, would see it, Screen International said - but "word of mouth will be a killer". And some twists and turns "merely provoked derisive laughter among the preview audience", it added. The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, predicted Revolver's box office business would be "modest at best". "The movie spins wildly in circles, continually doubling back on itself, repeating scenes - once even backward - and lines of dialogue until a viewer loses a grip on what is supposed to be real," critic Kirk Honeycutt wrote. The idea was really to put five films in one Guy Ritchie "The film's pretentious style and fractured storytelling preclude any audience involvement in the coy melodrama," he added. Ritchie said the film was designed to make viewers think. "I think I got fed up with films that don't make you think," he said. "I liked the idea of one that you have to be dancing around with. "I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film. So, the idea was really to put five films in one." Liotta described making the film with Ritchie as "definitely one of my better experiences as an actor". Disaster discussion Madonna travelled to the premiere less than a month after suffering three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand in a horse riding accident. "You would have had to broken both my arms and both my legs for me to not come here," she told reporters. On the fourth anniversary of the attacks in New York and Washington, she also discussed 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. "We have had another natural disaster that's kind of making that look like nothing in comparison," she said. "Well not nothing, but it's worse in a lot of ways." The Toronto Film Festival has also hosted premieres of Steve Martin's romantic comedy Shopgirl and Sir Anthony Hopkins' adventure movie The World's Fastest Indian. Sir Anthony plays Burt Munro, a New Zealander who set speed records on a motorcycle in his 60s in the 1960s, and the film received a standing ovation in Toronto on Saturday. Story from BBC NEWS: |
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| Fans turn on Ritchie and Madonna Guy Ritchie and his wife Madonna have been booed by fans at the UK premiere of his new film Revolver after making little contact with the crowd. The couple walked past most of the 2,000 people in London's Leicester Square without signing autographs. The gangster film's star Jason Statham spent almost an hour meeting fans. Ritchie hit back at savage reviews, telling reporters: "The critics have been harsh all the way through my career but it doesn't affect me." The bad critical reaction was inevitable because the film's concept was "tricky", he added. Asked why he did not give Madonna a role, Ritchie replied: "Do you think they would let me get away with that? I did that last time, it didn't w**k." Ritchie directed his wife in Swept Away three years ago, but the result was derided by both cinemagoers and the press. But Madonna defended her husband's new w**k, telling Sky News: "I love it. I think it's a very brave film, a bit macho." She also said she enjoyed not having to w**k the red carpet, saying it was fun to just "dress up and show up". Her sling, a result of a broken collarbone and hand and three cracked ribs, will be coming off in a week, she revealed. Ritchie made his name with hit gangster films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Revolver features Statham as a criminal who revives a feud with a gangland boss. It also stars Ray Liotta and Andre 3000 of hip-hop group OutKast. "After Revolver, Swept Away now looks like Citizen Kane," the Guardian newspaper said. "Ritchie's new film lands on cinemagoers' collective heads like a sack of wet sand." Variety magazine has called it "tedious" and "convoluted" while the Hollywood Reporter criticised its "pretentious style". |