Rev·e·nant /ˈrevəˌnäN,-nənt/ noun: a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead. Oh. Like Jesus. Or zombies. Or zombie Jesus – he wandered in the desert for brains. Well suddenly that makes sense. I mean, it made less sense only when I didn’t know what “revenant” meant; Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) spends the vast majority of a 2.5 hour film not dying when everyone and everything else around him has bitten the dust. And not for lack of trying, either. The either ill-named or perfectly-named Glass is broken for most of this film, but never breaks – if that makes any sense.
It’s anybody’s guess as to when and where The Revenant takes place. Like with the title, I looked up the venue as 
well – 1823 Montana/South Dakota (long before either was a state, of course). I personally would have guessed Eastern Time Zone just above the St. Lawrence forty years previous, but then I’m no expert on firearms – it’s very likely the handguns used had not been invented before the 19th century. Not sure either the Pawnee or Souix reached those areas anyway. Grizzly bear would have been a clue, too. Geez, Jim. Think.
I digress – try to imagine a wooded area by a river. The only structures standing are small mud-coated huts. White trappers are all over the place when arrows start flying from multiple directions. It looks like the trappers are … trapped. We know this isn’t the case, however – while this party will clearly suffer heavy losses, it will survive, because it contains Leonardo DiCaprio, who can’t die here for at least 150 minutes. Not only that, we also know exactly who will survive among the group, cuz, oh yeah, that’s scalped Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson and that kid from We’re the Millers.
Running away, the nine survivors of forty-five find their li’l fur boat, which immediately made me wonder what was going on; there’s no way that boat holds forty-five people, unless you all want to pack in like Titanic survivors. Any the extra room is all for the fur. An angry debate as to the ideal retreat yields to the direction of the most experienced scout, Glass, who has survived along with his Native American son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). John Fitzgerald (Hardy) ain’t pleased; he’s a guy you don’t face unarmed, and even then, you wouldn’t choose that conversation.
And then Glass takes down a bear. Not some chump black bear, either — a fully grown adult grizzly. In one of those scenes I would love to know how it was filmed, Hugh Glass kills a bear while getting mauled. And the rest of the film is entirely about survival and revenge. No, Glass doesn’t need revenge on the entire ursine population. Like most of The Revenant, the bear attack is raw and poetic. Frightening, exposed, isolated and yet surrounded at the same time … the cinematography in Revenant brilliantly captures the vulnerability of an injured man in the wild. Ever wanted to
know what it would be like to be left for dead? This film tells you in vivid, painful detail with dirt and saliva and blood. The Revenant even answers the unasked question; “what is like to cauterize a neck wound with gun powder?” This is not the role you’re going to love him for, but this is arguably Leonardo DiCaprio’s finest work.
I like this film more than the last one from Alejandro González Iñárritu – Birdman or (The Unbearable Lightness of Being). I don’t know if this is the best film of 2015, but I think it’s every bit the equal of the film we proclaimed the best of 2014 and more so. I will be neither surprised nor angry to see Iñárritu take home the Best Director award in consecutive years.
♪I checked if our path was fair
Then I got mauled by a bear
He was a grizzly bear
Did not play ‘Truth or Dare’
After, I was one unhappy meal cooked rare
And then I moaned and passed out while dudes sewed what was left of me back together♫
Rated R, 156 Minutes
D: Alejandro González Iñárritu
W: Mark L. Smith & Alejandro González Iñárritu
Genre: Living for revenge
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Survivors
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The squeamish
♪ Parody inspired by “Unpack Your Adjectives”
