“The Revenant” Review
“The Revenant,” “Birdman” director Alejandro Inarritu’s western survival epic, has endowed me with quite the case of internal turmoil. In every conceivable technical category the film excels. The directing is great, the cinematography is stunning (as expected), Inarritu’s bold choice to shoot on location with only natural lighting has paid off; there were actually several shots that I could not imagine how they managed to capture them. The acting was also superb, especially by the two leads, Leonardo Dicaprio and Tom Hardy, through Hardy was occasionally incomprehensible. Also, now I really don’t want to be a fur trapper.
However there are major flaws in “The Revenant,” ones that really damage the caliber of the film, ones that reduce it from one of the year’s best to simply ok. The worst offence is the insertion of a false morality into the morally grey true story of Hugh Glass. Fitzgerald is transformed from a man who simply wanted to be paid and not die to a mustache twirling villain and not a compelling one at that. The character of Hawk, Glass’ “halfbreed” son, is inserted unnaturally into the tale to facilitate this transformation and to morally justify Glass’s quest for revenge.
The false morals touch more than just the American characters, as the film’s Native Americans are given the same treatment. No longer do the films “Anakira” indians attack Glass’ party out of desire for the the very valuable furs (plus general animosity), a “princess” character in need of rescue is dreamed up excusing their actions. One the whole this false morality damages the film philosophically. No longer do we exist in the dehumanizing frontier but in a black and white game of knights and princesses.
The further deviations from the real life story only serve to damage the film to a great degree. While in real life Glass devised an ingenious way of ridding himself of infection, the lack of him doing so in the film leads to a contrived and poorly explained side plot which wrecks the film’s pacing. Additionally, the final act of the film is way too short, and the ending, which is another departure from real life and serves only to cement the moral black and white, is disappointing.
“The Revenant” is a film that makes me sad. All the “hard stuff” is done is well: the directing, the bold filming, the fantastic acting and set work. However it is let down by the changes inserted into it. Had these changes not been injected into it and had this movie stuck to the real life story (which you should check on Wikipedia after viewing) “The Revenant” would have been one of my best in 2015 (and probably a 90 something rating).