The Revenant

 

Alejandro Iñárritu's The Revenant is a largely successful epic. The combat scenes impressed me with their technical virtuosity as no film has since Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans. Iñárritu expresses both the grandeur and harshness of the American frontier quite well. His attempt to flavor his tale with Native American mysticism strikes a false note, however, and leaves The Revenant just short of classic status.

I can understand the rationale behind wanting to have a note of hopeful spirituality amidst the savagery and carnage here. Man is constantly tested in Iñárritu's films to display a glimmer of humanity in a dog eat dog existence; quite literally so in Amores Perros. DiCaprio's character is beset by Tom Hardy's sub-human villain, wolves, the elements, and an enraged bear. It makes sense that his character would flashback to the happy domestic scenes of his life in a Pawnee village.

However, the woozy tone of these moments doesn't jibe with the rest of the narrative. DiCaprio even has a vision of a pyramid of buffalo skulls for no apparent reason except that maybe Iñárritu (and Leo) want to do a little ecological consciousness raising. DiCaprio's ability to have one foot both in the pioneer and native American world is overly stressed and smacks of sententious liberal gloss. The Revenant's last vision of DiCaprio's dead missus seems out of a cheesier epic, namely Mel Gibson's Braveheart.

Still, I don't want to underestimate The Revenant's power. I was never bored during the entire two and a half hour runtime. DiCaprio has been used better before, but is fine here and deserves his career award. Tom Hardy, using the same Yosemite Sam with a mouthful of mashed potatoes voice he did in Lawless, is a memorable evildoer and Domhnall Gleeson is moving as Captain Henry. The Revenant is a testament to Iñárritu's gifts and to his limitations. Overall, though, both Birdman and The Revenant show that he has grown as an artist. (4/27/16)