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+
Lean on Pete
7 years ago
