After a handful of delays I finally got to see the Revenant
last night at a near midnight showtime. The film is about 2.5 hours long so in
the twilight of the Thursday midnight opening it might be one of the last
opportunities to see a theater in a completely desolate state afterward; with
nary an employee in sight. This film is fascinating for a number of reasons,
not the least of which being its relative basis on a factual story. There are
various elements that are constructed or adjusted for the film for obvious
reasons but the actual core of the story, i.e. man gets mauled by Grizzly Bear,
is left for dead, then crawls for 200 miles back to civilization seeking
retribution, appears to be something that actually happened.
The first part of the film is a bit longer than I was
expecting, but it did give the director an opportunity to introduce the
characters and have them speak actual dialogue for a while. For the majority of
the film very little is actually spoken, and I think the big reason why this is
Dicaprio’s best performance to date is that he didn’t have to talk much (and
about half of his dialogue is in a different language). A big issue Dicaprio
and many other actors have is falling into the trap of playing almost the exact
same character in every movie; regardless of the design of the character
itself. This isn’t the same as being typecast, it’s simply a style of acting
that lacks in range. However if you totally negate that aspect and make 90% of
the acting physical: groaning, gurgling, crawling, limping; then it works
pretty damn well.
Visually this film is absolutely gorgeous and was almost
exclusively filmed in the wilderness of Canada (where the film is largely set)
in natural light settings. The innumerable difficulties that this poses have
been well documented, but it is certainly a fantastic achievement in
cinematography alone. There is an odd obsession with the usage of rivers in the
film which makes the exact way that Dicaprio survives seem a bit specious at
times; but hey it’s a really ridiculous survival story to begin with so you
should be able to bend your logic circuits a bit. I did find it odd that they
never addressed Hugh Glass’ broken leg/foot directly, since setting a bone is a
somewhat common film device lately why not have it in the Revenant somewhere,
but that’s a relatively minor quibble.
The rest of the cast is very solid, Tom Hardy’s great as you
might expect considering he’s Tom Hardy. Domhnall Gleeson delivers possibly his
best performance ever, though it’s more an exceptionally competent role instead
of an extraordinary one. The film has no real weaknesses and is basically a
mish mash of Castaway, The Grey, and No Country for Old Men; with only the
final film in that list really being on par with this one. Of course I still
have to answer the big question, and no the Revenant is not better than Mad
Max; it’s certainly the best not Mad Max of the year though.
Aside: I saw Snowpiercer recently since for some reason the
upgraded Comcast interface is basically Netflix; really fantastic movie I’d probably
stick it in 3rd for 2014 tentatively, behind Edge of Tomorrow and
Birdman. Chris Evans is great in not Captain America roles (not to disparage
the Cap), also worth watching in the Iceman starring Michael Shannon; another
true story except about an incredibly prolific contract killer/family man.