Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu wowed audiences last year with his visceral mind-numbing (and eventual Best Picture winner) Birdman. The way he foresees landscapes is something of pure technical genius. Along the way with the help of his longtime collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki captures the essence with every single frame. While The Revenant, a hard enduring – blood soaked harsh winter epic, is not as free spirited compared to Birdman. However, It still offers an intense vehicle of physical endurance for long time Oscar snub Leonardo DiCaprio..which after seeing him go toe to toe with mother nature – (by that I mean getting tossed around the block by momma bear…more on that later) – he might just finally snag some much needed Academy Award gold.

Set in the 1823 rockies — this story is ‘inspired by true events’ . Inarritu shares screenwriting credit with Mark L. Smith here, whose prior engagements lie in the realm of low budget horror. DiCaprio plays hunter Hugh Glass, whose first shown stalking down a stream staring down the barrel of a shotgun aimed at an unsuspecting Elk. We hear whispered voice overs, soft glistenings of water flowing through nature, and the quiet of the outdoors. It’s the type of soundtrack Inarritu can use to soothe us in the right mindset where, not even ten minutes lapsed into the film before we are guzzled into a whirlwind of man-man violence. Glass’s camp of white fur traders becomes raided by a tribe of Native Americans who seems to have just been made out of thin air. The carnage is chaotic and, thanks to some great editing, looks as though this was all done in one shot, it’s quite breathtaking.

Glass is not the average fur trader, he was hired, along with his son (whom he speaks to in Pawnee) to track this group to the “edge of the world”. Of course, greed stipulations seem to get in the way as it’s fully embodied in Tom Hardy’s irate Fitzgerald (in another role that requires his voice to be muffled). While Glass tries to lead the man back to the wary coziness of shelter he is maliciously attacked by a big brown grizzly bear (in an extended five minute sequence that had to make me pick myself up off the floor). With hardly any hope of survival Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) orders for him to properly buried and leaves him in the care of Fitzgerald until the time of his death. A death, that Fitzgerald’s personality wants to see so badly it takes him to insurmountable lengths- eventually throwing Glass in the ground with some dirt on his head. Only thing is Glass is not dead, and, at the risk of not spoiling too much, let’s just say that Glass has more than enough motive to track down the condemned Fitzgerald for his gaping revenge.

DiCaprio who was last nominated for playing Jordan Belfort, a fast talking, cheating, money-making scoundrel in The Wolf Of Wall Street is almost an exact opposite here. Thanks to that intense bear crawl attack – DiCaprio’s character is reduced to a rag doll for ⅔ of the film. For longs stretches of time we must watch this one man’s harsh struggle for survival without any dialogue. If not for the beautiful camera angles of texture those slumps would have dragged the movie down. But I would be lying if these landscapes weren’t spectacular to look at. The physicality is what’s important to address here, I saw it in the Wolf Of Wall Street..and I saw it here. Really, it shows you the lengths that DiCaprio is willing to push himself (perhaps a metaphor for all the times he has been nominated for an Oscar and never won?)

Inarritu made the tough decision to only film in natural lighting, which means not having artificial light stands that usually perfect the image on screen, which it pays off in strides. If you have been following the behind the scenes trouble (likely not to hurt box office grosses) you would understand how much of a hellish shoot this was, and it shows. Everything feels authentic, everything feels, for the most part, believable. Of course I can’t say for certain if someone could take the beatings Glass did and live to tell the tale. But the overall symbolic imagery seems to distract us from a story that does take it’s time to progress (the film clocks in at 156 minutes – almost twenty five minutes too long). The poetic aspect may also be hard for some viewers to ingest as they will be looking for a tad more than what is being offered, you may look at the ending and go “huh?”.

You could talk for hours on end about the message of acceptance or the sequences of self-reflection that Glass has. Messages that would probably take more than a few viewings to fully comprehend, I’m almost sure I missed some minor things. Another minor flaw I had with the film was how it handled the flashbacks of Glass’s wife..I kind of felt it was there to attract motivation, but instead kind of never fills the void it wanted too. Basically, I wanted more of the back-story there and never received enough.

Still..
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The Revenant is a film enhanced by the surroundings that embody nature, and a mesmerizing performance from the sheer willingness of a determine DiCaprio who brings forth great strength to forgo his journey. Even if that means not being able to speak for a good hour of screen-time and hearing the pain in his voice when he does.

​Despite a slower than expected build, it’s the pictures that are created here and the capabilities of some terrific visual effects artist that can sort of compensate for some flawed perspective in a story that was overall, just an average revenge flick. B+