Leo Dicaprio may never
win his sweet, jelly-filled Oscar, but by God he is going to die trying and The
Revenant is a testament this statement.
Set in early 1800s
Montana, contract trapper and Cabela’s Big Hunt extraordinaire Hugh Glass and
his party of fellow burly, beefy, bulky, bearded trappers are on their way back
to Ft. Grizzly Adams (or something) to rake in the dough for their contracted
haul of pelts. In this party of merry men is John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy yet
again portraying a stoic badass who communicates exclusively in pessimistic
proverbs and unintelligible grunts), Glass’s half Native, half White whiny
bitch of a son Hawk, a few other tough skinned ruffians, and the kid from We’re
the Millers.
Well, as you probably saw in the trailers, Glass has kind of a rough day what with being nearly mauled to death by a grisly grizzly, helplessly watching his only son murdered in front of him, and, to top it off, being buried alive before dragging himself across the Midwestern tundra in an attempt to exact revenge on the man who left him to die.
Cue Daniel Powter music
There’s so much to
this film that I’ll have to condense most of what I want to say down to a few
paragraphs.
Directing: If
Alejandro González Iñárritu is ever troubled with a water shortage localized to
his house, he need not worry because he’ll be fucking showering in all the
Oscars he’ll reap this season. Beautifully captured long shots are the pulse of
The Revenant’s tension filled story.
Cinematography: Pure, unadulterated, triple-distilled, gluten-free, X-rated
Earth porn. The shots in this movie make Victoria Falls look like a urinal at Pita Pit. This is right up there on the top shelf of cinematography with Lawrence of Arabia,
Barry Lyndon, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Acting: Just
give Leo his damn Oscar so we can shut up about it already. This year’s Oscars
yield a particularly weak grouping of Best Actor nominees so it’s (crosses fingers) basically a lock for Leo
to finally get his statue, unless the Academy decides to blue ball him for yet another year and give the trophy to Eddie Redmayne for his topical role as
Caitlyn Jen- I mean Lili Elbe.
Bundling those three
paragraphs together makes it seem like The
Revenant is the must see, heart pounding film of the year, which is hardly
the case. The film runs for a tedious 2 hours and 36 minutes, so if you are at
all tired going into the theater be warned: I fell asleep twice, and Iñárritu’s
extensive use of long shots may lull some to sleep and risk missing out on some
deliciously brutal scenes.
In short, The Revenant is a fantastic look into
the savage capability of man and boasts some of the most beautiful
cinematography put on camera, but I have no desire to sit through it again.
