Director Alejandro González Iñárritu
Genre Adventure | Drama | Thriller
Cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter
Rating R
Release Date January 8th, 2016
“A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.”
One of the best director/actor combos has been Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorcese, teaming up on The Wolf Of Wall Street, Shutter Island, and The Departed, to name a few. Now DiCaprio has teamed up with another director who is building quite the resume, Alejandro González Iñárritu (I cannot for the life of me pronounce his full name without looking it up) who is responsible for 2014’s critically acclaimed Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) starring Michael Keaton and Edward Norton. DiCaprio and Iñárritu have teamed up for The Revenant and as expected viewers and critics alike had very, very high hopes.
I went out to see The Revenant not long after its release because to be quite honest, I was looking forward to this for at least 6 months. The buzz had me expecting nothing short of a masterpiece and that is precisely what I had anticipated spending 2 ½ hours of my life experiencing. Well ladies and gentleman, the good news is that The Revenant satisfied my expectations but it is also worth noting that many friends and acquaintances (otherwise known as convenience friends or work friends) were let down by the motion picture blockbuster for a variety of reasons. The trailer for The Revenant makes it feel like a sort of John Wick style revenge film but that would be an ill-conceived notion. Consider The Revenant to be more of the cool calm and collected revenge film, think Leon: The Professional minus young Natalie Portman or any attractive females for that matter. The revenge will come my friends, but you must eat your vegetables first, some people are so impatient!
I apology for the relentless ranting of analogies but I feel that it had to be said, now on to what matters. I felt The Revenant was exactly the movie I expected it to be. It is a film about revenge and the undeniable strength of the human spirit when faced with the most brutal circumstances. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are incredible in their performances and even though DiCaprio received the nomination for best actor (which I feel he deserves) a nomination could have easily gone to Hardy as well. Both make a strong case with their performances and bring unique abilities as actors to the table. To be honest one of my favorite aspects of The Revenant is how artful and beautifully shot the film is which did not go unnoticed given its nomination for best picture. To me it felt somewhat similar to the very underappreciated film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. The similarities come down to a number of beautifully shot scenes with very little if any dialogue.
The Revenant is a unique film that not only deserves to be seen but any fan of quality filmmaking owes it to themselves to experience what Iñárritu crafted for us all. Just be sure that you can handle graphic content and intense violence because it has that in spades. Highly recommended.
