Leonardo Dicaprio’s divisive Oscar-winner is better than you remember

The final time just about anyone heard about The Revenant was January 14, 2016 when Leonardo DiCaprio received his overdue Oscar for Greatest Actor. The consensus on the time was that, due to the harrowing filming course of, which included issues like consuming uncooked bison liver, risking hypothermia within the Canadian wilderness and, most notoriously, sleeping in a realistic-looking horse carcass prop, DiCaprio had earned his Academy Award by sheer grit.However similar to Martin Scorsese successful Greatest Image for The Departed as an alternative of for the superior movie Goodfellas, the narrative round DiCaprio’s win was that it was additionally conciliatory, to make up for his earlier losses for excellent performances in movies like What’s Consuming Gilbert Grape, The Aviator, Blood Diamond, and The Wolf of Wall Avenue. As a result of he was such an achieved actor by that point, and since he hadn’t already received, the Academy primarily “owed him one.” The Revenant’s filming challenges allowed him to Concern Issue his approach right into a win for a efficiency that possibly didn’t deserve it.

Perhaps these detractors had been proper. In any case, 10 years after premiere on Dec. 25, 2015, The Revenant isn’t the foremost cultural reference level in the present day that so a lot of DiCaprio’s movies are. However this argument of the film ignores the truth that, on that very same evening, Alejandro G. Iñárritu received for Greatest Director, Emmanuel Lubezki received for Greatest Cinematographer and the movie earned a flurry of different nominations, together with Greatest Image (that award went to Highlight). The Revenant is a spectacularly instructed, heartbreaking story about revenge and survival. It’s additionally nicely paced, superbly shot and an thrilling journey. As a personality piece, sure, DiCaprio’s efficiency ties all of it collectively, however the movie is solely worthy of its 2015/2016 reward — and fully unworthy of its 2025 irrelevance.

Based mostly on Michael Punke’s 2002 novel, The Revenant, which is loosely based mostly on a real story, facilities on Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) who’s essentially the most skilled tracker in an expedition gathering fur pelts. Whereas on his personal, Glass is attacked by a bear and seems to be at demise’s door. The captain of the expedition, fearing an imminent assault by Native People, decides to maintain the corporate shifting, however he leaves three folks again with Glass to look at over him as he dies and provides him a correct burial. These three are Glass’ half-Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), Hawk’s pal Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), and Native American-hating trapper John S. Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy).

Simply wanting the additional cash promised to him, Fitzgerald proposes they speed up Glass’ oncoming demise, however when Hawk tries to cease him, Fitzgerald stabs Hawk to demise as a helpless Glass seems on. Fetching water, Bridger is absent throughout all of this however is quickly instructed by Fitzgerald that Hawk ran off and that they’re underneath assault by a tribe of Arikara, so Bridger and Fitzgerald hurry off, leaving Glass to die after being rapidly half-buried whereas nonetheless respiratory. From there, it’s a revenge story, with Glass making his approach by the brutal wilderness to hunt revenge on Fitzgerald.

Filmed within the Canadian wilderness, The Revenant captures a lot of the pure magnificence that surrounds glass, nevertheless it by no means indulges in it, largely by means of distinction. We might even see a forest freshly painted with white snow, nevertheless it’s in opposition to Glass sucking rotten meat off a long-dead animal. And, whereas an imposing river flows earlier than Glass, we see it as he brutally cauterizes a wound. The movie can be nearly solely filmed handheld from an unpleasant eye-level, with only a few sprawling huge pictures. The result’s that the character that surrounds glass, whereas picturesque, all the time seems like an instantaneous risk.

Glass’ journey by the wilderness is genuinely thrilling. He’s thrown down a waterfall at one level and tangles with French Canadian hunters which might be conserving a local lady hostage as a intercourse slave and who lynch a Pawnee he briefly befriends. In one other sequence, whereas Glass is being chased down by hostile Arikara, he and his horse go over a cliff which he survives by touchdown in a tree. Trial after trial, Glass perseveres and simply retains on his journey to kill Fitzgerald.

Hardy is diabolical as Fitzgerald however nonetheless fairly human, and Poulter is equally efficient because the younger, scared, however good-hearted Bridger. However The Revenant is all about DiCaprio, and he shines, not simply due to the obstacles throughout filming, however as a result of he makes you are feeling each one in all them, each actual (just like the chilly) and staged (just like the bear assault). There’s additionally loads of nuance to his character, the one one with a seemingly enlightened view of the complicated relationships with totally different tribes of Native People. In one of many human scenes, he and Hikuc (his Pawnee pal) catch snowflakes on their tongue like kids — nearly the one second of respite within the film.

Certain, DiCaprio’s different roles just like the hilariously drugged up Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Avenue and the desperately clinging-to-fame Rick Dalton in As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood could also be extra enjoyable, extra memorable and extra meme-able, however DiCaprio is on the high of his sport in The Revenant — and never simply because he ate some uncooked bison liver.