Man versus nature mixed with a driving desire for revenge and you have The Revenant. There’s plenty of wide-angled agony and a ton of grit in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film on the trials and tribulations of real life frontiersman Hugh Glass. With the lead played by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant earned mostly positive reviews as it made its way to the 2016 Academy Awards. See some snippets from reviews below.
JUDGEMENT
“Life put the screws to Hugh Glass, the real-life tracker and fur trapper played to the hilt and beyond by Leonardo DiCaprio. And director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, a groundbreaker from Amores Perros to Birdman, damn near tortures his cast and his audience in telling the story of Glass’ revenge against the varmints, headed by John Fitzgerald (a wicked-nasty Tom Hardy), who done him wrong.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
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“The imagery is sublime, primal landscapes straight out of an Albert Bierstadt painting and weird wastelands pulled from Glass’ subconscious. The score, by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, is doomy and primal. And those eccentric grace notes that buoyed Birdman are present too: at one moment a character’s ragged breath fogs up the screen. It took a crazed drive equal to Glass’ own to put together this mad feat of a film.” Nick De Semlyen, Empire
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“That is to say, it’s a groundbreaking film; it’s very excellent! That is, if you can stomach it. This is not your date movie. This is your manly tale of revenge, sheer willpower, and desperate survival. Military men, firemen, Alaskan crab-fisherman, Alaskan bush pilots, and Alaskan Coast Guard rescue-swimmers will all love it. Everybody else: stay home. You’ve been warned.” Mark Jackson, Epoch Times
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“Many awful films have swept the Oscars, but few have been as flamboyantly empty as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance – a self-congratulatory “satire” that wasted the talents of a game-for-anything Michael Keaton, targeting superhero blockbusters and highbrow theatre without saying anything meaningful about either. Though no less bombastic, Inarritu’s follow-up The Revenant is a more acceptable showcase for his stylistic gifts, a basically straightforward revenge Western with inevitable pretentious trimmings.” Jake Wilson, The Sydney Morning Herald
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“Admittedly, even viewers who don’t buy Iñárritu’s ersatz depth will find themselves bowled over by the sheer aesthetic and technical firepower he throws at it. The Revenant opens with a magnificently filmed and choreographed fight scene, during which a group of trappers is trapped by native Arikara fighters in a chaotic ambush, every move captured by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki with startling fluidity and intimacy.” Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
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“Remember how Vietnam-era westerns (Little Big Man, Soldier Blue, Bite the Bullet, High Plains Drifter) expressed liberal American guilt? Well, the trendy ISIS-era politics of Iñárritu’s western fantasy prohibit cathartic heroism. This frustration and reticence add to The Revenant’s Obama aspect. DiCaprio and the prodigious Tom Hardy sink into their characters’ obstinacy to show white American moral descent (while the knowing Native Americans bide their time stereotypically — a millennial flip of their passivity in Dances with Wolves).”
Armand White, National Review
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“Glass dons the fur coat of his bear attacker but eventually becomes an animal in man’s clothing. That ironic twist speaks to the film’s portrait of survival as an instinct shared by all living creatures, and which, as seen in the actions of Glass, Fitzgerald, or a Native American chief looking for his kidnapped daughter, supersedes notions of morality, fairness, or decency.” Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
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What about you, how do you rate The Revenant?
See this 20th Century Fox video featuring director Alejandro G. Iñárritu who discuses the themes covered in the film: