The Revenant is the much talked about serious Oscar contender, directed by last year's Best Director winner Alejandro Iñárritu and starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson and Will Poulter. The film is set on the northern frontier and revolves around a group of fur trappers collecting pelts in the harsh wilderness. However, expert tracker Hugh Glass (Dicaprio) is fatally wounded and left for dead by John Fitzgerald (Hardy). Glass manages to survive and endures numerous conflicts with natives and nature as he hunts down Fitzgerald.
The Revenant is truly a cinematic accomplishment. Iñárritu shot the film on location and in natural light and despite the reported arguments and problems during production, it has payed off. The movie looks simply mesmerising. Each long shot of the winter landscape is matched by the smooth continuous takes during action scenes, a trademark of double Oscar winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. The opening scene is a perfect example of these takes. As natives attack Glass and his company, the camera tracks from different members as they are each horribly pierced by arrows and cut down. Then there is the now famous bear scene. Roughly half and hour in, Glass stumbles upon bear cubs, only for the mother to barrel towards him and brutally fling him around and rip his back and throat open, also in a tense and immersive continuous shot. The bear looks so well realised you forget it is computer generated, especially when her breath condenses on the camera lens. You may have to pick your jaw off the floor during this scene. No other film comes close to how well photographed this film, and these scenes in particular, is.
Compared to the other recent western flick The Hateful Eight, dialogue in this film is fairly minimal and often in subtitles. What dialogue there is said is well performed by the four main characters; Glass; Fitzgerald; the group's captain, Andrew Henry (Gleeson); and Jim Bridgers (Poulter). But the acting is at its best when there is no dialogue. Leonardo Dicaprio gives a tour de force performance as a man who has lost everything; a man on the brink of death with only revenge keeping him going. As he walks and crawls from threat to threat, Dicaprio keeps your attention snap on him. If he does not win an Oscar for this role, then I do not know what will. Tom Hardy (who has had an incredible year) continues his streak of great performances as the selfish antagonist Fitzgerald who (as is common with a lot of Hardy acting) mumbles and grunts a lot of his lines but it is startlingly effective. Poulter and Gleeson also add very strong support.
The production design, costume and sound is deservedly Oscar nominated and the score is suitably dark and gloomy, with rare moments of when it picks up into a fast paced and tense piece of music, notably at the brutal climax.
This is a film with everything going for it; a terrific director who's intelligence to use real locations over greenscreen has paid off, an outstanding cast led by the best performance of 2015, spellbindingly absorbing cinematography and a tense, bloody duel at the end. There is not one gripe with this film and if it doesn't sweep the awards season, then knew judges and voters are needed.
