The Revenant

Review

The Revenant is a 2015 American survival drama film directed, co-produced and co-written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The screenplay by Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith is based in part on Michael Punke's novel of the same name, inspired by the experiences of frontiersman Hugh Glass in 1823, in what is now Montana and South Dakota. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Glass, and co-stars Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter. The film follows Glass's quest for revenge after one of his men betrays him, kills his son, and leaves the severely wounded Glass behind.

Development began in August 2001 when producer Akiva Goldsman purchased Punke's manuscript. Iñárritu signed on to direct in August 2011, and in April 2014, after several delays due to other projects, Iñárritu confirmed that he was beginning work on The Revenant and that DiCaprio would play the lead role. Principal photography began in October 2014; problems with location and crew delayed the film from May to August 2015.

The Revenant premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, on December 16, 2015, and had a limited release on December 25, 2015, followed by a wide release on January 8, 2016. It received positive reviews, mostly for its performances, direction and cinematography. The Revenant won three Golden Globe Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and at the 88th Academy Awards, Iñárritu, DiCaprio and Emmanuel Lubezki won the awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Cinematography, respectively. DiCaprio also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actor.

Cast:

-Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass
-Tom Hardy as John Fitzgerald
-Domhnall Gleeson as Andrew Henry
-Will Poulter as Jim Bridger
-Forrest Goodluck as Hawk
-Duane Howard as Elk Dog
-Arthur Redcloud as Hikuc
-Melaw Nakehk'o as Powaqa
-Grace Dove as Hugh Glass's wife
-Lukas Haas as Jones
-Paul Anderson as Anderson
-Kristoffer Joner as Murphy
-Joshua Burge as Stubby Bill
-Fabrice Adde as Toussaint
-Isaiah Tootoosis as Young Hawk
-Brendan Fletcher as Fryman
-Brad Carter as Johnnie
-Tyson Wood as Weston


1.We will be honest here, watching "Revenant" will make you feel their pain. It is pretty safe to say "The Revenant" isn’t an Adventure – It’s an Endurance Test. If you want to know  why, go watch it.

2.Before we can even get our bearings, Glass and his expedition, led by Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), are attacked, arrow to the jugular, by Arikara Indians. Casualties are great, though Glass strives to protect his half-Pawnee son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). In a style reminiscent of Terrence Malick, Glass hallucinates about his dead wife. But the scenes feel more arty than artful. We're relieved when Glass heads into the forest and a scene that will surely blow you away.

3.The scene where Hugh Glass is attacked by the mama bear was pretty thrilling to watch. The Drudge Report mistakenly implied that DiCaprio's character was raped by the bear(Imagine if it was the case?). But Mama is just defending her cubs. (Spoilers to one's who have still not watched it) But when she flips Glass over on his back, you can hear his bones crack. And then she comes back for more. When she claws at his face, Glass looks like something Freddy Krueger left for dead. The sequence is spectacular in every sense of the word.

4.The visuals were breathtaking and the CGI bear is a product of an expert visual-effects team. That bear which is infact a stunt man who literally throws Leo around and tear at him. But not for a second will you doubt that the CGI bear is not real.

5.DiCaprio, hidden behind a grotty beard, his words mostly reduced to grunts, he nonetheless provides a portrait of a man in full. It's a virtuoso performance, thrilling in its brute force and silent eloquence which, without a doubt, won him The Oscar. Tom Hardy also did an excellent job scaring everyone and making it look like he was "Actually" torturing DiCaprio. So, the acting in this movie was too good.

6.About how the movie will affect you - generally, immersive movies enclose, they put you inside, they dunk you down into what it is supposed to feel like. Iñárritu and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki do the opposite: they expose you to the elements. You are out in a piercingly painful cold, under an endless, pitiless sky. This is not an immersion that feels like a sensual surrender; it’s closer to having your skin peeled. The images that the movie conjures are ones of staggering, crystalline beauty: gasp-inducing landscapes and beautifully wrought closeups, such as the leaves in bulbous freezing mounds, and a tiny crescent moon, all unsentimentally rendered. But there is also something hallucinatory and unwholesome about these images, as if hunger and pain has brought Glass to the secularised state of a medieval saint tormented with visions. Poignantly, he mimes shooting distant moose with a tree branch instead of a rifle, and when he suddenly comes across a vast plain full of bison, it’s unclear for a second if he is imagining things. A ruined church looks like a miraculous example of cave painting.

7.Does The Revenant pull the viewer in? Yes. Is it well made? Undeniably. Is Tom Hardy once again scarily convincing and pretty much capable of anything? Of course. But this is a movie that sweats and bellows and stomps so loud, for so long, that it’s ultimately an exhausting exercise in what happens when an Oscar winner decides he’s going to do some demystifying. Imagine what a John Sturges or a Howard Hawks could’ve done with this material. Better yet, don’t. In the end, we recommend you to watch this movie if you like a thriller, action, drama etc. And to those who are not into this type of genres, fear not, it will absolutely  not let you guys down.


(NOTE: This review is according to us and our friends and some external source here and there. Stick with us for more reviews like this)     ENJOY!!