This Western Thriller Is Kevin Costner’s Darkest Film

Before Kevin Costner made his feature directorial debut with the 1990 epic Western film Dances with Wolves, Costner, who won two Academy Awards for the film, wanted to direct the 1990 romantic thriller film Revenge, which was released approximately eight months before Dances with Wolves. His relationship with Revenge, which is based on Jim Harrison’s 1979 novella of the same name, began in 1985 when he read the novella and became drawn to its themes of betrayal and friendship. However, when Costner was cast to star in Revenge in 1988, producer Ray Stark felt that the actor wasn’t ready to direct such a film and hired Tony Scott.

Regardless, Revenge provided Costner with the darkest role of his career with Jay, a former Navy fighter pilot who is compelled to abandon the moral code he lived by in the military to seek vengeance against the man who tried to kill Jay and the woman Jay loves. Jay’s quest is complicated by the fact that Jay betrayed the man by taking the man’s wife.

The fact that Revenge was a box-office failure at the time of its release is a testament to the film’s uncompromising brutality and his willingness to subvert his good-guy image and reveal a vicious side of his screen persona. This transition enabled the adventurous Costner to play more mature and morally ambiguous roles throughout the rest of his career.

Kevin Costner Plays a Former Top-Gun Pilot Who Betrays the Wrong Man

The influence of Revenge director Tony Scott is apparent in Revenge in the film’s opening sequence, which references Scott’s blockbuster 1986 hit Top Gun by introducing Kevin Costner’s character, Jay Cochran, as a crackerjack United States Navy fighter pilot who has decided to leave the military after 12 years of service.

Following Jay’s retirement, he receives a present of shotguns from a friend, Mexican crime lord Tiburon “Tibey” Mendez, who invites him to stay at Tibey’s Mexican compound, where Tibey is accompanied by his beautiful young wife and surrounded by ruthless henchmen. Jay’s unconventional friendship with the older Tibey was born out of a previous hunting trip in which Jay saved Tibey’s life.

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As soon as he meets Tibey’s wife, Miryea, played by Madeleine Stowe, sparks fly, much to the consternation of Jay, who initially laments falling in love with Miryea but is overwhelmed by passion. During a party hosted by Tibey, Jay, and Miryea have sex in a closet. Tempting fate and underestimating the inherently suspicious Tibey’s intelligence, Jay and Miryea plan a secret rendezvous at a remote cabin in Mexico.

However, after Tibey and Tibey’s henchmen storm the cabin, Jay and Miryea face severe consequences for their betrayal and deception. Tibey slashes Miryea’s face with a knife and then places her inside a brothel, where Tibey orders her to be drugged and raped on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Jay, after being viciously beaten in the cabin where Jay’s beloved dog is shot and killed, is dumped in a desert and left to die.

His subsequent quest to exact revenge against Tibey and to be reunited with Miryea is overshadowed by Jay’s crime of adultery and the knowledge that Jay brought this misery upon himself by entering this forbidden relationship and thus betraying a loyal friend in Tibey, who expresses more sadness at losing Jay’s friendship than losing his wife.

Revenge Has Shades of Cormac McCarthy

With its biblical sense of justice, old-country psychology, and lawless Western backdrop, Revenge is reminiscent of the work of acclaimed author Cormac McCarthy, specifically McCarthy’s morality-based novels All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road, along with the feature film adaptations.

Morality in Revenge primarily revolves around the themes of adultery and betrayal, manifested in the film’s three main characters, each of whom bears responsibility for the ensuing tragedy. This is especially true of Jay, who incites the film’s dark themes by violating the Bible’s 10th commandment, specifically regarding the passage about not coveting your neighbor’s wife.

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While the aggrieved Tibey’s form of retaliation is gruesome and unacceptable by the standards of modern society, within the Western backdrop of Revenge, Tibey’s vengeance falls comfortably within Tibey’s, and the film’s, old-world mentality. In this context, the film’s hidden villain is Jay, whose immoral behavior is ultimately responsible for his and Tibey’s shared unhappiness.

His stupidity in this regard reveals a significant problem with Revenge, in which Tibey, as powerfully and terrifyingly played by Anthony Quinn, is such a fearsome figure that a man would have to be crazy to have an affair with Tibey’s wife. The fact that Jay makes such a stupid mistake makes it difficult to have sympathy for him.

Revenge Was a Box-Office Flop

Despite the seemingly surefire commercial attachment of Kevin Costner and Tony Scott, Revenge, which received negative critical reviews at the time of its release, became one of the biggest box-office failures in both of their careers. However, in subsequent decades, both Costner and Scott listed Revenge as being one of the films they’re most proud of.

Revenge has won many admirers in its post-theatrical life, including author Jim Harrison, who said he was so impressed by the film that he was brought to tears, and Quentin Tarantino, who was so impressed by Revenge that Tarantino recommended Scott to direct the 1993 romantic crime film True Romance from Tarantino’s script.

For Costner, Revenge marked his introduction to the neo-Western genre, which he later revisited in the 2020 thriller film Let Him Go and the acclaimed television series Yellowstone. Moreover, Costner first began developing his latest film, the epic Western film Horizon, in 1988, right around the time he was cast in Revenge. Revenge is streaming on Prime Video.