The Revenant is a revenge western film directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, director of my favorite film of last year (Birdman), and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as real-life frontiersman Hugh Glass who, in the 1820s, was mauled by a bear (Jonah Hill) and left for dead by his own hunting team, led by John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), causing him to subsequently seek out Fitzgerald to exact revenge for making him eat bison liver and sleep naked in a horse carcass and a whole bunch of other gross shit. The result is what I hope will end the "Leo has never won an Oscar" meme for eternity.
Now, this movie was absolutely showered with Oscar nominations, picking up 12 for the night (luckily, I think this will be the last movie for another year that I even bring up awards shows in my review, but c'mon, it's relevant). Are they all deserved? Eh, I wouldn't say so. Is this a very well-crafted movie? Oh-ho, yes. While the author of that brilliant article linked above seems to pretty openly think this movie is hypermasculine bullshit, I think this is an incredibly decent, beautifully shot, masterfully directed, superbly acted, and psuedo-spiritual(?) revenge film.
All right, let's get the obvious out of the way. Leo is a powerhouse in this movie, as is Hardy; in fact, dare I say it, I think Hardy does about as much with his (considerably shorter) screen time as Leo does when given the spotlight for about 90% of the film. That said, Leo's acting is almost entirely physical, with much of his dialogue actually being in a Native American language, but other than that, he may be the only actor so far to one-up Hardy in a movie on the grunt factor. Hardy's villain is believable and not completely one-dimensional, and Leo's Glass is sympathetic, and we understand his plight. It's all pretty simple, but it's simple done really, really well. And Leo is a captivating watch.
Speaking of simple, one thing that is definitely not that is the direction and overall production of this movie. If you haven't heard the horror stories of this film's production, then I encourage you to look them up, as they're Jaws-level terrible. Inarritu insists, though, that if the film's very raw, hands-on approach to production was replaced with simple keying in of computer generated imagery or shooting on a set to keep within budget and shooting schedules, "everyone would've been happy but the film would've probably been a piece of shit" (paraphrasing). And as the viewer, I'm glad Inarritu had this mindset, because it definitely worked out to the film's betterment, and a piece of shit is not.
The opening battle scene is essentially the Normandy Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan with arrows and muskets. The violence in this movie (and there is a lot of it) is visceral, brutal, unflinching, and in your face, and the film is pretty consistently tense. There were numerous audible moans and shouts of shock at some of the images in this movie, which is something I don't see happen often. We've had movies where people's heads are blown to smithereens, but flesh wounds and smacks to the face with the butt of a gun are a hundred times more disturbing in this movie than in those cases - case in point that it's not so much what you're showing, but how you present it. And that can be applied to much of The Revenant. There's not a whole lot here from the standpoint of story, themes, or characters that's really new or fleshed out in any sort of compelling way, but its story is constructed in such an engrossing way that we forgive it (or at least I did).
This seems to be Inarritu's philosophy on filmmaking, judging by these last two projects and some interviews I've listened to. He seems to be very interested in modern filmmaking technology and finding new ways to engross the audience in a story, and to truly make the theater experience relevant again. This is admirable, and a much more welcome approach to storytelling than whatever he was trying to do with his very melodramatic, mostly self-indulgent earlier films. This is where The Revenant suffers - there are several images in this film that I know Inarritu wants to mean much more, but oftentimes they go very unexplained. I'm cool with vagueness as long as we have enough to guide us through those vague images to eventually arrive at the point. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but I didn't get what larger message the movie was trying to convey to me, and the ones I've heard suggested by those who did "get" it doesn't seem all that important or groundbreaking to me. I really don't know what greater spiritual message this movie was going for. "Revenge is God's action"? Okay. Cool. But nobody killed my son, so where do I fit into this message? Help me out, Alex.
Ultimately, I don't know whether I'd like a really well-made movie with not much substance or a really well-made movie with an awkward attempt at substance, but The Revenant gives us the latter, and it's honestly an engrossing and crazily well-shot and well-acted piece of work, especially the bear scene. I don't mean to make this seem tangential because it's easily the best part of the movie, but the bear attack scene is an amazing feat of filmmaking, both in terms of cinematography, directing, and action. Maybe one day I'll make a whole article talking about just why that scene is so good. Anyway, it'd be cool if The Revenant was as tightly scripted as Birdman, but if the worst sin this movie commits is being a very good simple movie, I'm cool with that. I give credit where it's due, and with The Revenant, it's in most places. I'll probably check it out again sometime.
Grade: A-
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