YMMV / Revolution (1985)

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• Americans Hate Tingle: A variation, seeing how it wasn't really popular anywhere, but in the UK and mainland Europe it was merely considered dull and disappointing. American critics, on the other hand, were ten times harsher.
• Audience-Alienating Premise:
  • A British-produced film about the American Revolution told from the standpoint of the colonials was an idea that was never really going to be accepted by American audiences, no matter how good the film was. Many major critics at the time even outright said that British filmmakers should just stay away from the subject, or at least not bank on making too much money in the States.
  • British audiences weren't a whole lot keener on the film's concept, as they generally tend to prefer films about conflicts that the UK actually won, hence why there's been so many successful and fondly-remembered British films about The Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II, but almost none about the War of Independence.
• Mis-blamed: Several American film critics made sure their reviews included an Ironic Echo of Chariots of Fire writer Colin Welland's claim that "the British are coming" while accepting the Oscar for Best Screenwriting for his work on that film, leading to a belief among many that the two films shared the same Production Posse of Welland, producer David Puttnam, and director Hugh Hudson. While the two films were both directed by Hudson, neither Welland nor Puttnam were involved with this film.^note In fact, despite a minority of American critics using the film as an excuse to slam the entire UK film industry and dismiss the resurgence of British cinema as little more than a short-lived fad — something that would admittedly prove correct until late in the following decade — this film's actual producer (Irwin Winkler) and writer (Robert Dillon) were both Americans.
• Questionable Casting: Al Pacino and Nastassja Kinski as 18th Century Americans. Enough said.
• Retroactive Recognition: Dexter Fletcher is Ned Dobb.
• Strangled by the Red String: Daisy falls in love with Tom after meeting him twice. Al Pacino mumbles a lot, feels sorry for himself and comes off as a bit pathetic, which makes the whole romance come off as by-the-numbers and unlikely.
• Uncertain Audience: The producers couldn't decide if the film was a prestige picture, a mainstream crowd-pleasing blockbuster, an Oscar Bait movie, arthouse fare, all of the above, or something else entirely.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: For some reason, someone in the costuming department had the bright idea to stick a huge hairy mole on the side of Donald Sutherland's face that looks utterly ridiculous.

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