The Revenant (2016)

The Revenant – review

Nominated for all sorts of Academy awards The Revenant is an epic tale of survival and revenge. It is fantastic looking film with fine performances and in many ways a “very worthy production”. However is it worthy of all the plaudits………. .

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter

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I saw The Hateful Eight just a week or so before this film and a comparison of the two can be (if a little like comparing James Joyce and Michael Crichton.) useful. The Hateful Eight is stylised and bloody. The Revenant is realistic and bloody. The former is has an odd moral code running through it’s narrative, excused by the knowledge that the protagonist are cool. The latter has equally dubious morals excused, in this case, by revenge and the Frontiersman mentality. Neither excuse, ultimately, makes a great deal of sense. Both films examine also racism and oppression, and both come up with the thought that racism is a bad idea. ‘Mmmmmm!‘

There are things That Revenant does which are very special. The performances of Di Caprio and Hardy, and the supporting cast are fantastic, and how they did that thing with the bear is remarkable. The slightly surreal Native American dream like sequences are interesting and captivating. The Revenant is an epic in both scale and length.

In fact, it is a bit too long for my liking. I’m not sure if it was the duration, but at some point I lost all interest in the outcome for any of the characters. So when it eventually ended I was quite pleased it was over. That left me oddly unsatisfied. Be in no doubt this is a good movie. It will win Oscars. It will be hailed for its great performances, but in 10years time it will spring to mind as a great Western? Probably not. It is not The Outlaw Josie Wales. It is not The Unforgiven. It is not even The Hateful Eight.

Review by: TheManInTheBlackHat