The Revenant – Movie Review

The Revenant – R
Release Date: Fri 08 Jan 2016

The Revenant is an adventure/drama directed by Alejandro Iñárritu starring Leopnardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. When frontiersman Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is viciously mauled by a bear he is forced to survive and make his way alone back to civilization.

The story of The Revenant can be condensed into a few sentences, but this is mainly a framework for showing an unflinching look at man vs. nature – as well as some man vs. man. Iñárritu’s direction and the cinematography are magnificent. There are sequences that seem impossible to pull off as well as beautiful, winding camera movements similar to his prior film, Birdman. There is just enough dialogue to feel natural and keep the story moving, but everything is so carefully crafted the story and the intentions are there with or without the great sound design.

This is certainly DiCaprio’s movie as we follow him dealing with extreme survival in the winter wilderness. Tom Hardy and Domnhall Gleeson are great supporting characters.

I will mention the violence of the movie as being pretty extreme. A lot of it comes from the camera lingering on the horrifying wounds left by the bear and Glass’ painful attempts to take care of himself. Since the point of the entire movie is to show this struggle, it feels right for it to be there, but if you’re squeamish about watching frontier medicine and some gritty skirmishes you may want to sit this out.

Otherwise, I highly recommend seeing this visual masterpiece in theaters on the biggest screen you can find.

Nathan, Aaron, Cal, Ben and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car: