The Revenant is a movie not for the faint of heart. The movie is based on a real life trapper Hugh Glass who was mauled by a bear on a trapping expedition. His partners Fitzgerald and Bridger volunteer to stay back with him while he recovered from his injuries. In the movie, an additional boy stays back, Hawk. Hawk is Glass’s Indian son, but in real life he did not have an Indian son. Now, with that being said, the movie says that it is based on true events, I would still say that Iñárritu took to the script very liberally, adding drama and intensity.  

I however, don’t think that should be a flaw. Putting historical accuracy aside, the movie is still pretty good. The decision to only film in real light may have been very strenuous and difficult, but it added a very real feeling to the movie. The colors of the movie are very dark and cold, the message that man can be inherently good or bad, the nature is a savage beast. For the first 45 minutes plus, most of what we hear and see from DiCaprio is a lot of grunting, if not screaming. That however, does not take away from his critically acclaimed performance. DiCaprio took 2014 off after Wolf of Wall Street to travel the world and undoubtedly had a lot of acting bottled up. He has already picked up a Golden Globe and a SAG and is favored to win an Oscar, the first of his career. Perhaps the best scene is when DiCaprio crawls out of his “grave”. To see a man, half alive, half dead crawling out of a pit symbolizing his death, literally by his fingertips, screaming for revenge was a hard scene to get right, and DiCaprio played it with 200% effort and realism.   

Now let’s talk about Tom Hardy and his oscar-nominated performance. Hardy plays the antagonist John Fitzgerald, one of the men who killed Glass’s son, and left Glass to die in a pit. Hardy’s portrayal reminds us of a certain Sgt. Barnes (played by Tom Berenger) from Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986). Both characters show the more animal side of man, the notion of survival of the fittest.

Overall I would wholeheartedly give the movie a 4-star rating. I think that the cinematography was genius, the dark blue, dark colors were very intense and added a lot of depth, reminding me of Picasso’s blue period. The Revenant is a definite contender for best picture.