When General Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) separates himself from his hunting party to go on a quick solo hunt of his own, he runs into a big problem in the way of an angry momma grizzly. The bear that you probably saw in the trailer tears Glass to shreds. Not only does the man (Fitzgerald, played by Tom Hardy) that volunteered to stay with him leave him behind but he also kills Glass' son on the way out. Imagine how all of that probably made Glass feel. Mad enough to go on one hell of a revenge tear.
The Revenant is directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the same man that brought you Birdman. I've tried to watch Birdman multiple times and just can't seem to get into it. The dreamscapes are supposed to help push the story along, but it was more of a distraction to me than anything. I bring this up because Inarritu uses a multitude of dreamscapes and flashbacks in The Revenant as well. This film definitely could have done with less of that as it was over 2 1/2 hours. I also thought the ending was a bit ambiguous, but neither the dreamscapes or the ending were enough to keep this movie down.
Snowcapped mountains surrounding a rapid river. A pack of wolves taking down a buffalo on the plains. A ball of ants dragging prey back to their colony. I could fill this page with the number of beautiful shots you witness throughout the course of this film. The beauty of all this is not in the shots themselves, but in the stark contrast of the brutal frontier violence that sometimes occurs right after. It's this combo of "salty and sweet" that makes this movie work so well.
The movie sucks you in from the first five minutes and doesn't let go. An attack on the hunting party by Native Americans kicks things off as Glass' group attempts to fight an enemy they can't seem to see while racing to an escape boat. The camera subtly moves from hunter to hunter while arrows are whizzing by and piercing through people and trees. There are some slower moments, but you are always in anticipation of the next battle.
To me, this was DiCaprio's best role. He plays a man broken by heartache, but bound by vengeance. You can feel his pain throughout the film, a pain that leaves you saying, "Man, am I glad I'm not that guy." While his performance was the best, it didn't overshadow Tom Hardy's performance as Fitzgerald. Now here was a guy you really had no problem hating. Easily one of the best villains I've seen since Denzel's Alonzo in Training Day.
If you need a good movie to see, look no further. I give The Revenant a 91.
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