The Revenant (2015)

Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “The Revenant” is grueling, beautiful, and blood-soaked ugly. It is the tale of survival and revenge with Leonardo DiCaprio as famed tracker Hugh Glass, returning from near-death to find those who abandoned him for dead after a bear attack in 1820s America. My gut instinct: “Revenant” is far too long and far too a “Look at Me!” performance by DiCaprio with his artist/director as cheerleader. But laying in bed hours later I clicked on “Revenant” as far more than the straight flick of one angry man killing another that I expected. Wanted. It’s a spiritual war of man, nature, and an America I’ll never know. Inarritu uses dreams and hallucinations within dreams, tied to shaky reality. None more stunning than a ruined stone church, images of Christ barely intact, that may or may not exist. Glass is a haunted man, and Tom Hardy as Fitzgerald -- the man who leaves Glass for dead, and kills the latter’s Pawnee son -– is also that. Glass says he “ain’t afraid to die,” he’s done it already, but so has Fitzgerald. It’s damn long and peculiar, but “Revenant” is a brutal, exhilarating tale of base nature, man and animal. B+

Calvary (2014)

Brendan Gleeson plays an Irish village priest who receives a death threat in the confessional box at the start of “Calvary.” “I was 7 when I first tasted semen,” the instigator says, proclaiming that he wants to slay a good priest in the name of revenge as the abuser priest has died. Refusing police help, James seeks out the man in secret among the locals, including a bartender, a butcher, the mayor, the mayor’s gay trick, a pathologist, an American writer, and a wealthy, lonely Londoner. Near all angry at life for its cruelty, or the Church, longtime protector of child rapists. James’ soul is righteous, he having lived as husband and father, his wife now dead, his grown daughter (Kelly Reilly) troubled and haunted. Writer/director John Michael McDonagh’s drama focuses on the trouble and glory of faith, even lost. James’ spirit bends as his week turns to violence, from the same man, others? Rarely is religion treated with such somberness. Alas McDonagh serves up blatant, ugly stereotypes. The trick is a Fox News cartoon. That said, the end broke me as James insists on grace over damnation. That, not the stereotypes, is a notion to live by. B

Black Death (2010)

Few sights are as sick as some bigot spouting off about the evil of Islam, as they uphold the Christian Church as the Shining Symbol of Humanity. They should watch “Black Death,” a grisly horror-thriller about the mid-1300s Black Plaque that ravaged Europe. The power-mad Church calls the plague God’s punishment against the unfaithful, and the only way back to His (its) grace is absolute submission. (Sound familiar?) Eddie Redmayne plays a naïve monk conflicted about his oath to God who travels with several Christian soldiers to hunt an untouched village, for it must hold sinners. Director Christopher Smith and writer Dario Poloni don’t go simple, for that village has a blood thirst greater than the Church. Sean Bean is the head Soldier of Christ, and his demise is one for the Sean Bean Movie Death record books. Too bad Redmayne is so boyish he makes Tin-Tinseem like Jason Statham and fails huge at the darkest scenes that end this blackest of tales. Smart, tense, and wide-open as the similar-themed “Season ofthe Witch” is dull, dumb and CGI’d to hell, “Death” coolly reminds us that Men of God are rarely ever that. B

Anonymous (2011)

“Anonymous” plays on the theory that Shakespeare wrote no play, poem, sonnet, or even a letter to mom. Here, he is portrayed as an alcoholic half-literate naïf actor. The real author of “Romeo and Juliet,” et al – according to this Roland Emmerich-directed flick -- was Edward de Verve, a Brit royal who dare not put his name to literature, then marked as heretical by the Protestant Church. The film is densely plotted as we start in present day, jump to the 1500s, following Edward’s shuffled deck tragic life, and back again. The edit jumps and myriad of characters are too numerous, and the script shreds many facts to oblivion, especially concerning Christopher Marlowe, and Edward’s alleged anonymity, which actually isn’t true. Another grind: The film smacks of elitism, arguing that middle-class Shakespeare could never have the talent of a rich royal. Really? But it’s a juicy, well-staged conspiracy drama that scores when showing how then-audiences cheered, booed, and stormed the stage in rage at the plays we know well, and its portrayal of the Church as a power-mad entity unsurpassed in corruption. Rhys Ivans plays Edward with a striking sadness, a man eternally haunted by hunchbacked men of God. B-