“Vengeance is best left in the hands of the Creator.”
Directed by: Alejandro G. Inarritu
Written by: Mark L. Smith, Alejandro G. Inarritu (screenplay), Michael Punke (novel)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson
The H-Bomb: After his party of fur trappers is ambushed by local Indians, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a handful of his fellow trappers barely escape with their lives. Among the surviving members of the party is John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a rather selfish and disagreeable individual who Glass is constantly at odds with. After an encounter with a temperamental bear leaves Glass gravely injured and barely alive, Fitzgerald surprises everyone by volunteering to stay behind with Glass and Glass’s son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck).
Unfortunately, Fitzgerald is not the helpful chap he pretends to be, and before long, he murders young Hawk, and leaves Glass for dead. Only Glass doesn’t die. Despite the severity of his injuries, and the harsh winter conditions, Glass is determined to make the journey back to the trappers’ outpost, not simply for the sake of survival, but out of the need to avenge his son’s death. His journey will be an arduous one, as his wounds are most debilitating, and the pack Indians on his trail are quite hostile and likely to scalp him on sight.
Glass’s most daunting obstacle, however, is the wilderness itself. It’s the dead of winter, and Glass is being pitted in a one-on-one death match against Mother Nature, and as he’s about to learn… Mother Nature don’t fuck around.
If there’s ever a film that’s made me grateful to have been born in the 20th Century, it’s this one. That is what everyone who sees The Revenant should take from it, that we must never take our modern comforts for granted. Before the last hundred years or so, human beings have had it pretty fucking rough. Anyone familiar with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Inarritu’s past work (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel), will know that feel good is hardly his thing, and that the word levity doesn’t even exist in his lexicon, thus making him the ideal director to recreate the stark nastiness of the bad old days.
With The Revenant, which is based loosely on real events, Inarritu hasn’t simply made a movie, he has constructed a two-and-a-half hour long endurance test, that puts us right smack in the bloodied, mangled shoes DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass, as he is forced to weather the harshest of harsh conditions. Every injury he suffers, every fall, every broken bone, is so vivid, we can practically feel it. As puzzled as I was by all the praise heaped on Inarritu’s previous picture, Birdman (which I liked but didn’t love), this time, my hat’s off to the man, as he has crafted one of the most realistic depictions of man trying to survive in the wild ever put on film. It is grueling, ugly, often difficult to watch, but as a whole, it is an astonishing cinematic achievement.
On a technical level alone, The Revenant is a marvel, with Inarritu and his gifted cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, often filming in single, roaming takes, using nothing but available light, to create some genuinely stunning sequences. The chaotic battle at the start of the film, and the horseback chase that ends with Glass and his horse diving over a cliff, are just two of the many sequences that will blow you away and leave you wondering, “How the hell did they do that?” Hidden cuts? Subtle CGI? I sure as hell didn’t spot any, though both must have been employed. This will certainly be a must buy on Blu-Ray, just to look at the special features, which will hopefully go into how they pulled some of this shit off, because I am genuinely stumped.
The standout scene, the one that is most impressive on both a technical and dramatic level, is the bear sequence. An utterly ferocious scene, in which we witness, in what looks like a single, unedited shot, a very realistic looking bear mauling the fuck out of a very real looking person. A triumph of film craftsmanship, even if the rest of The Revenant was shit (which it’s not), the bear scene alone would warrant paying full price, just to see it on the biggest screen, with the best sound available.
Technical prowess aside, The Revenant also boasts some excellent performances. DiCaprio, who has proven himself time and time again as an actor, is exceptional in what is mostly a silent portrayal of a man consumed with grief, haunted by his past, and in the most excruciating pain of his life. This is a purely physical performance that DiCaprio commits to one hundred percent, and it shows. Much of the physical discomfort his character is supposed to be in seems very real. This is perhaps DiCaprio’s finest hour as an actor, a performance that I can wholeheartedly say is award worthy.
When one thinks of the sorts of characters Tom Hardy has played over the years, brutes, beasts, and bad-asses… one sort that doesn’t come to mind is cowardly weasel. Yet, that is what Hardy plays here, and he does a damn fine job of it. As the depths of Fitzgerald’s scumbaggery are revealed over the course of the film, your contempt for him will grow, and by the end, you will want him to get his overdue comeuppance. It takes a great actor to make a character that detestable, and Hardy is that actor. And to all the folks complaining about how they can’t understand him with the Texas accent he put on, well, I understood him just fine, so get some Q-tips and clean the gunk out of your ears.
Now, for all the aspects of The Revenant that work, there are a few flaws that keep me from giving it the full, five star salute. First, there’s the running time, which at two-and-a-half hours, is just too damn long. With The Hateful Eight, the length didn’t bother me in the slightest (and I’ve seen it twice, now), with this one, however, I felt my butt getting stiff in the latter half. Second, there are these damn dream sequences scattered throughout the film, that are meant to be moody and Terrence Malick-like, but just seem out of place. One scene, in which a woman awkwardly floats above Leo, got a bewildered laugh out of the audience at my screening.
My main issue with The Revenant, though, is something I also admire about it; it is dark, and bleak, and brutal as hell. That’s absolutely what the story calls for, and had Inarritu made any attempt to lighten it up, it would’ve been inappropriate bordering on offensive. However, like I said earlier, the film is like an endurance test, and the fact that it’s as oppressively dark as it is, will limit its appeal. Despite being well shot, well directed, and well acted, the deathly grim tone will be a turn off for many. That, in all probability, is how The Revenant will be received, as an impressive work of art that audiences will more likely admire than enjoy.
