AFTER a panning from the critics, you would think that the British film director Guy Ritchie and his wife Madonna would have gone out of their way to win over the fans at last night’s premiere of his film Revolver.

Instead, London’s golden couple were booed by large sections of the 2,000 crowd that had turned up at Leicester Square, upset that they had been ignored.

While the film’s star, Jason Statham, spent nearly an hour signing autographs outside the Odeon, Madonna and Ritchie posed for photographs before disappearing into the cinema without saying a word to their well-wishers.

Madonna, 47, wearing a black sequined Roberta Cavalli tuxedo dress and with her arm in a matching sling after a horse riding accident, said that it was Ritchie’s night and she enjoyed not having to work the red carpet. “This is fun for me. I get to dress up and show up,” she said. But the fans were not happy. And neither were the critics with the film.

Revolver stars the Ritchie regular Statham as a hustler who comes out of prison and then makes a fortune in Las Vegas with a card table con trick that he learned on the inside. However, he then falls foul of the crooked casino boss, Ray Liotta. But critics claimed that the film is even worse than Swept Away, which starred Madonna as a rich American who makes life miserable for a lowly Italian sailor on board her luxury yacht. But then the pair find that their relationship is turned upside down when they are shipwrecked together on an island.

As with Revolver, the critics were not appreciative. The New York Daily News described Swept Away as “amateurish”, a “debacle” and a “new career low” for Madonna, while the New York Times said that the production was “soggy and superfluous”.

The film had been expected to be released in British cinemas in March 2003, but it went straight to video and the inevitable bargain basket.

Ritchie, 37, who burst on the scene in 1998 with the acclaimed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, has defended the film.

He said of the criticism: “I think it was inevitable, the concept of the film is tricky and that’s part of the reason I was attracted to it in the first place.

“The critics have been harsh all through my career, but it doesn’taffect me. I’ve accepted the rules of the game.”

Asked why he did not give Madonna a role in Revolver, he replied: “Do you think they would let me get away with that? I did that last time, it didn’t work. Madonna is happy the filming is over.”

“I get more love when he’s not making a movie,” said Madonna. She said she loved the film, and added: “I think it’s a very brave film, a bit macho.”

Madonna broke her collarbone and hand, and cracked three ribs, in a riding accident last month on her estate on the Dorset and Wiltshire border. She said that the sling will be coming off in a week’s time.

Read James Christopher’s critique of Revolver in The Times tomorrow.

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