The Revenant, the
156-minute thriller directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is both exciting and
disappointing. Its attributes include its non-stop action
from beginning to end; the physically grueling acting display put on by both Leonardo
DiCaprio and Tom Hardy; possibly the most visually impressive film I have ever
seen beautifully using the backdrop of the mountains throughout; and an overall
simple story that’s almost refreshing when one thinks about all of the botched
scripts coming out of Hollywood.
By itself, this of course does not make for a great
movie. And unfortunately, the
moviemakers fail to provide us with anything else to turn this from an
interesting movie-going experience into something special. The movie is too long, relies far too much
upon violence to pull moviegoers in, and turns an otherwise intriguing film
into a revenge story – with the revenge element being the least interesting
portion of the entire movie.
Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a tremendous frontiersman and
explorer, guides a group of hunters besieged by hostile Arikara Indians. Between battles with the tribe, Glass gets
himself mauled by a bear during a remarkably choreographed scene. Two members of the hunting party and Glass’ Native
America son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) remain behind with the intent of carrying the
badly injured Glass to safety. One of
the members is the young Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) on one of the first of his
many explorations of the west. The other
is John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a capable and extremely unscrupulous man who
already has had run-ins with Glass.
Eventually Fitzgerald kills Hawk and cajoles Bridger into leaving Glass
behind.
Assuming that Glass could never survive on his own,
Fitzgerald and Bridger eventually make their way back to a military fort. In the meantime, Glass not only survives his
wounds, he also is able to evade the Arikaras and to even rescue the daughter
of an Arikara chief from a group of Frenchmen.
When Glass shows up at the military fort, Fitzgerald disappears. Bridger then confesses to the commanding
officer the truth about the abandonment of Glass. Though Glass is still recovering from his
wounds, he pursues Fitzgerald. When he
finds Fitzgerald, a tremendous knife fight breaks out. While stabbed in the knife fight, Glass still
is able to deliver Fitzgerald to his death at the hands of the Arikara chief
whose daughter Glass had rescued. Glass
then presumably dies because of his wounds.
The storyline seems to borrow from the plotline in Jack
London’s gripping short story, “Love of Life.”
The story also bases itself upon a novel regarding the real life
exploits of explorer, Hugh Glass, who was the victim of a bear mauling. There are a few major differences, however,
between the movie and the real life adventure (1) the real Hugh Glass survived
for several years after the incident in question; (2) Glass never had a son who
died at the hands of Fitzgerald; and (3), Glass forgave the real life Jim
Bridger, who was an extremely young man at the time, and Fitzgerald who was a
soldier by the time Glass finally caught up with him.
Besides trying to push fiction off as fact, another problem
with this film changing the narrative is that the real life story is more
intriguing than the one we see on the movie screen. Regarding the real life story, we ask
ourselves why Glass would forgive the two.
Though trying this question out as a plot device will not draw in an audience
who would rather see a twenty-minute knife fight, it would give the audience
more to ponder upon at the end of the film.
In any case, we can’t call a movie great when the story upon which we
base the film is more compelling than what we see in the movie theater.
The Revenant probably
will receive awards during next week’s Academy Awards, and it certainly would
not be the worst choice ever made if it won an Oscar for Best Picture. However, if I was on the committee to choose
the best picture and if I really cared who won the award to begin with, I would
choose Steve Jobs over The Revenant. While nowhere near as riveting to watch, Steve Jobs tells a better story than The Revenant.
February 21, 2016
© Robert S. Miller
2016
