The Revenant review: “Creative, captivating carnage.”

The Revenant review: There’s just one word that sums up Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest. Breathtaking.

The Revenant review by Paul Heath, January 2016.

Leonardo DiCaprio goes all in with his latest effort, a two-and-a-half-hour plus epic of a film featuring a mostly all-male cast, little dialogue, grizzly bears and tons of blood, guts and dirt.

Alejandro González Iñárritu goes for the Oscar one-two following on from his 2014 effort Birdman, the Michael Keaton-led drama that won Iñárritu the Best Director award at last year’s Academy Awards. The Revenant, a motion-picture monster that took a whopping nine-months to shoot in the icey conditions in the wilds of Alberta, Canada, follows Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a fur-trapper from the early 1820s, who, along with a team of fellow pelt-hunters, are ambushed in the mountains by Native American tribe, the Arikara. With the team cut down by two-thirds, the now ten-twelve man strong team must pull together all of their resources to stay alive, and salvage as much of their haul as possible. Unfortunately for them, nature has its own ideas, and when Glass stumbles across a pack of young bear cubs, he is brutally attacked by their mother, who lamost kills him outright. Barely surviving, members of Glass’s team make the decision to leave a couple of men, along with Glass’s son, to look after him after it becomes impossible to continue with their fallen comrade. Enter Tom Hardy‘s scalped scoundrel John Fitzgerald and Will Poulter‘s Jim Bridger, who along with Glass’s son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), stay to care for Glass until the rest can return with help, or until he dies so that they can give him a proper burial. Things do take an unexpected turn and the two abandon the still-alive Glass who, on his own, must overcome heartbreak, grief and physical hurdles to get back to base camp to find redemption.

Iñárritu, the Mexican director of such films as Amoros Perros, 21 Grams and later Babel and Biutiful, switches gears once again for this epic adventure. The talented helmer, who also co-writes with Mark L. Smith (Vacancy, The Hole), puts his actors through the mill for this very violent affair which relies on available light and lingering takes, which deliver powerful visuals and give his stars plenty of room to shine. Among this predominately male cast, no one is the weak link, with DiCaprio aiming for his first Oscar nod following his Golden Globe win this past weekend.

Intense from the off, The Revenant is certainly not one for the faint of heart. This is gruesome, unrelenting stuff with an opening scene reminiscent of the no-holds barred first 15 minutes from Saving Private Ryan, mixed with Mel Gibson’s furious pace and feel of Apocalypto. Expect arrows to whizz past your head, intesnse gory wounds, bloodied fields, severed limbs and horses taking the brunt of most of the carnage – and that’s just in the first few minutes. Iñárritu opts for ultra realism, his camera starting off and continuing through at its lowest possible angle, looking up at our caught-by-surprise protagonists as they are ambushed by a hostile tribe just moments in. His style is intense close-ups, hardly any cuts and a camera that won’t quit. Think Alfonso Cuarón’s approach to Children Of Men and you’ll have a rough idea of Iñárritu’s technique. If you think it stops with the first few minutes, think again, as before long we’re in the midst of a full-on bear attack involving DiCaprio’s Glass, Iñárritu’s camera again failing to relent from the brutality of it all.

The cast is phenomenal, and DiCaprio is certainly deserved of all of the plaudits he’s receiving, but one can’t help but feel how dominating Tom Hardy is here. His self-serving antagonist Fitzgerald is easily the best thing about the movie, and we can’t believe that he isn’t being mentioned in the same breath as DiCaprio amongst all of the award talk. He’s an absolutely bastard, but what a performance. Poulter also delights in one of his biggest roles to date. We’ve certainly come a long way since Son Of Rambow. Domhnall Gleeson is also on fire following his Star Wars effort, as head of the hunting team, Captain Andrew Henry. The entire cast is brilliant.

Great performances, stunning direction and cinematography, superb costume and production design, you have to sit back and marvel at the achievement as a whole. Filming in sub-zero temperatures at altitude, spiralling production costs, cast members quitting, communication issues and constant threat of hypothermia and random wildlife attacks, the production could tell quite the story of its own. The Revenant is a milestone in filmmaking, a masterclass in acting and deserved of every accolade it gets.

Simply breathtaking.

The Revenant review by Paul Heath, January 2016.

The Revenant is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th January, 2016.