(2 of 2)
Interesting Twist. As A, Jon Voight gives an extraordinarily fine performance—his best to date. He can be comic, confused or concerned with equal finesse. The force of his personality gives the role depth, but never overwhelms and smothers it. Collin Wilcox-Horne, as Voight's sometime mistress, has maddening mannerisms that transform her every scene into something akin to an Actors Studio exercise. Jennifer Salt (as a rich girl who becomes interested first in Voight and then in the Movement) and Robert Duvall (as the radical factory worker) help keep the proceedings in a more realistic perspective. Seymour Cassel gives the agitator an interesting twist of paranoia as well as the requisite shot of adrenalin.
There is a good deal of talk these days about bright young film makers, guys in tinted shades who spin their cameras around like tops, talk "commitment," smoke grass and produce exploitative films of the ilk of The Strawberry Statement and The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart. But they are merely today's equivalent of the old studio hacks; it is with film makers like Paul Williams that the future of the industry lies. Williams has talent and insight far beyond his 26 years. He has enough respect for his script—and for his actors—to let the camera record the scene instead of orchestrating it. The Revolutionary is not a totally successful film, but it is an extraordinarily good one—honest, compassionate, meticulously executed. It marks Williams as a film maker not only worth watching but also worth waiting for.