User reviews

It's too low key to arouse much passion, but The Revolutionary is a reasonably interesting look at radical left wing activity in the late 60s. Jon Voight mumbles his way through his role as a college student wrestling with his conscience (and getting expelled for listening to it). Robert Duvall is on hand as a more experienced organiser and Seymour Cassel is his usual fun self as Leonard, the token hippie. There are some very good moments,including a scene where Voight is caught painting anti-capitalist manifestos on a wall. There's also a wonderful pawn shop sequence that gets to the heart and soul of the film's thesis, but too much screen time is spent on Voight's struggling relationships with women. All in all, a period piece that will be of interest to anyone interested in the hard left aspects of political life in the turbulent Vietnam years.

I don't mind a film that moves slowly as long as there are other things to compensate==beautiful cinematography or fine, intense acting (a la The Passenger, The American, or the Tree of Life). But Voight's acting is ordinary, the supporting actors are incidental at best, and the photography is kind of odd. And though the movie was filmed almost exclusively in alleyways and university offices, there is no disguising that this is sooty London and not urban America. The tone of the movie reminds me a bit of the Graduate, moving kind of aimlessly about, with a hero that was not quite sure what he wanted, juxtaposed against the mores of uninvolved upper middle class elders who he secretly despises ( while coveting their WASPy daughters), and grittier street types.