Revolver

Guy Ritchie's third film, and by a distance his strangest: a crime story whose actual subject is the ego — a con man released from solitary confinement, pursued by an enemy who turns out to be the voice in his own head, and a plot built on the proposition that the greatest trick is convincing you that you are not the mark.

⭐⭐ THE FILM PEOPLE ARE REACHING FOR HERE IS NOT RocknRolla — IT IS THIS. Ritchie was involved with the Kabbalah Centre in this period, and the film is laced with the Centre's teaching: the ego as the adversary, and the reframing of the desire to receive for the self alone into receiving in order to share. Sony reportedly pushed him to cut back the references. ⚠⚠ And the wrinkle is the same one this wing has already met once: Ritchie has repeatedly denied the film is about Kabbalah — exactly as Evangelion's assistant director denied the Christian imagery meant anything. Two works, two disclaimers, and in both cases the material is visibly on screen. The room reports the denial and does not adjudicate it.