Guy Ritchie’s Revolver wants nothing less than to bring to an end a recent era of crime cinema. (That era began in the early ’90s and was dominated by Tarantino and John Woo. Ritchie’s first feature film, Lock. Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, formalized the style, dialogue, and narrative codes of this period.) The romanticism of a Hong Kong crime thriller, the soul of blaxploitation films, the witticisms of East End gangsters, the stoicism of a yakuza, Las Vegas cool, and, the granddaddy of them all, mafia pragmatism, are all built into this towering edifice of a movie. At its highest peak (and dizzying) point is a metaphysical question: What is the ego? The complex substance of the self; the conundrum of how one knows he/she is one and the same and not someone else; the mysterious voice in your head—Revolver attempts to resolve the ancient philosophical puzzle of the source and meaning of human consciousness. This is no joke.

The saint of the towering work is a British gambler, Jason Statham; his disciples are a chess master, Andre 3000, and a master con artist, Vincent Pastore. The saint’s enemy is a Las Vegas boss, Ray Liotta; the enemy of the saint’s enemy is an Asian gang lord, Tom Wu; and the angel of death is an Israeli hitman, Mark Strong. The god of the underworld is a faceless Mr. Gold.

The film ends with the intellect (Andre 3000) and the imagination (Pastore) revealing the truth to the man (Statham): He is his own disciple, his own enemy (and the enemy of his enemy), and his own god. The world of the film has no contact with our world, the real world of race, politics, gender issues, immigration laws, and police work. What we see on the screen happens nowhere else but in the mind of a criminal—his thoughts, ideas, and theories. Ultimately, Revolver is a failure. Ultimately, Revolver is the Hegel of crime cinema.

REVOLVER DIR. GUY RITCHIE | RATED R | OPENS FRI