9:35 pm - 03/06/2013
Top 10 Revenge Movies: Stories Best Served Cold
As a stellar revenge flick storms into theaters, Dead Man Down, Movie Fanatic is looking back. We're naming our favorite revenge movies in recent memory. It's a tricky thing capturing retribution on film. Solid cinematic payback has to play out slowly over the course of the film until that fateful confrontation that has the audience cheering.
As teased in the Dead Man Down trailer, the Colin Farrell starring film does it right. In fact, that film may even be on our list! Without further ado... here's the Movie Fanatic Top 10 Revenge Movies.
5. Gladiator
See there is nothing that gets a person raging down the vengeance road than the harming of someone's family member or members. Look at Taken, Dead Man Down and True Grit that came before -- and quite a few that are still to come on our countdown. Russell Crowe is a broken man motivated by the desire to extol justice on the army he once fought with, who made the mistake of killing his wife and child.
As a slave, he returns to Rome, becomes a huge Gladiator star... and when Joaquin Phoenix finally sees the revenge coming his way it's too late to stop it. In that pivotal scene, so many thousands of people are cheering in the arena onscreen, it reflects the will of the audience in the movie theater. "I only have one more life to take," Crowe says. It is powerful to say the least. That's just one of the riveting Gladiator quotes!
4. Cape Fear
Having a bad lawyer when fighting a traffic citation is one thing. If he is representing you in a trial that could send you to jail for decades, one might just build up just a little grudge. Such is the case with a menacing Robert De Niro and his laser beam focus when he gets out of prison of single-handedly ruining his former lawyer (Nick Nolte) and his entire world. Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear is payback at its most frightening. It is not only one of the Top 10 Remakes of All-Time, but one of the best revenge flicks as well.
3. The Professional
Some have called this movie Leon after the main character, but as it was introduced to me as The Professional and that is how I'll always remember it -- especially because of the power in the characterization of the title character by Jean Reno. His hitman is beyond ruffling, yet when a young girl enters his life when her family is assassinated, he finds his heart. And one-by-one, he and Portman head out into the city and get retribution for her family's demise.
2. Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2
Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to the plot method of revenge. It inhabits at least some part, if not all, of his movies. Just look at Django Unchained. But, his sword of redemption is never sharper as it is in the Kill Bill movies. Uma Thurman's The Bride and her reasoning for her quest to avenge the death of her child and being left for dead herself is so methodically laid out by Tarantino, it is a gale force wind of wickedness. No one should ever want to be on that list she had that ends with the words, "Kill Bill."
1. Memento
Memento lands at number one for several reasons. It is the best use of storytelling in a revenge tale. Since the film moves in reverse, the challenge for filmmaker Christopher Nolan is to create that passion for the main character for the audience, all while unpacking the pieces to a puzzle that in a sense, were already put together.
Guy Pearce rivets and his memory loss only further enhances the taste for revenge that the viewer experiences while watching it play out through Pearce. These Memento quotes only tease the terrific-ness that is Nolan's film announcement of his arrival.
Source.
As teased in the Dead Man Down trailer, the Colin Farrell starring film does it right. In fact, that film may even be on our list! Without further ado... here's the Movie Fanatic Top 10 Revenge Movies.
5. Gladiator
See there is nothing that gets a person raging down the vengeance road than the harming of someone's family member or members. Look at Taken, Dead Man Down and True Grit that came before -- and quite a few that are still to come on our countdown. Russell Crowe is a broken man motivated by the desire to extol justice on the army he once fought with, who made the mistake of killing his wife and child.
As a slave, he returns to Rome, becomes a huge Gladiator star... and when Joaquin Phoenix finally sees the revenge coming his way it's too late to stop it. In that pivotal scene, so many thousands of people are cheering in the arena onscreen, it reflects the will of the audience in the movie theater. "I only have one more life to take," Crowe says. It is powerful to say the least. That's just one of the riveting Gladiator quotes!
4. Cape Fear
Having a bad lawyer when fighting a traffic citation is one thing. If he is representing you in a trial that could send you to jail for decades, one might just build up just a little grudge. Such is the case with a menacing Robert De Niro and his laser beam focus when he gets out of prison of single-handedly ruining his former lawyer (Nick Nolte) and his entire world. Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear is payback at its most frightening. It is not only one of the Top 10 Remakes of All-Time, but one of the best revenge flicks as well.
3. The Professional
Some have called this movie Leon after the main character, but as it was introduced to me as The Professional and that is how I'll always remember it -- especially because of the power in the characterization of the title character by Jean Reno. His hitman is beyond ruffling, yet when a young girl enters his life when her family is assassinated, he finds his heart. And one-by-one, he and Portman head out into the city and get retribution for her family's demise.
2. Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2
Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to the plot method of revenge. It inhabits at least some part, if not all, of his movies. Just look at Django Unchained. But, his sword of redemption is never sharper as it is in the Kill Bill movies. Uma Thurman's The Bride and her reasoning for her quest to avenge the death of her child and being left for dead herself is so methodically laid out by Tarantino, it is a gale force wind of wickedness. No one should ever want to be on that list she had that ends with the words, "Kill Bill."
1. Memento
Memento lands at number one for several reasons. It is the best use of storytelling in a revenge tale. Since the film moves in reverse, the challenge for filmmaker Christopher Nolan is to create that passion for the main character for the audience, all while unpacking the pieces to a puzzle that in a sense, were already put together.
Guy Pearce rivets and his memory loss only further enhances the taste for revenge that the viewer experiences while watching it play out through Pearce. These Memento quotes only tease the terrific-ness that is Nolan's film announcement of his arrival.
Source.