The Revenant is a unique film, taking it’s time to develop the characters and story, which is a quality studio-produced films today usually skip over. This technique is not only refreshing, but effective, allowing for complex characters to be built in the first act of the film. Having said this, the slow pacing of the film didn’t really match with the more fast-paced and very intense battle sequences that were spread throughout, and sometimes scenes were chopped together a bit strangely. This is only a minor inconvenience however, and didn’t do much to reduce my enjoyment. Some scenes also felt a bit pointless, I feel a little too much Leonardo DiCaprio was shown, and some scenes of him surviving didn’t seem to carry much meaning or development.
The fight scenes, especially the opening one are incredibly well done. The choice to focus on the people more than the action was a good one in my opinion, and brought it to life in a similar way to Saving Private Ryan. The deliberate under use of music was also a great choice. Normally a film would put intense, booming music under its big action set pieces, so having this stripped away was a bit confusing to the audience, making it seem like a real ambush. The music then grew in tempo as the scene progressed, as both the characters and audience begin to understand what is happening, a great decision on the composer’s part.
I don’t mind films being a bit too stylistic, as long as the director hasn’t forgotten about the story in all of his fancy shots and camera movements. Luckily this wasn’t the case with The Revenant, and the gorgeous cinematography only elevated it. The visual storytelling was also notable, for example, a few specs of dust floating from the ceiling tell us that the treacherous Fitzgerald is planning to steal a safe full of money. It’s stuff like this that I really enjoy in films, not spoon-feeding information to the audience, letting them work things out for themselves.
The performances are all fantastic, Leonardo DiCaprio giving a convincing and brutal portrayal of the revenant himself, Hugh Glass. My favourite however, has to be the despicable character of Fitzgerald, portrayed by the ever-reliable Tom Hardy. His accent is a bit odd, but the utter hatred you feel for him at the end of the film is a clear indicator of Hardy’s excellence in this role.
And finally, Inàrittu’s signature sweeping long takes and shots are great. They add no real substance to the film but definitely showed the great technical achievement that The Revenant is. Overall, aside from some boring and/or pointless scenes, this film is a gripping watch from start to end, and certainly makes up for its flaws with beautiful cinematography and excellent direction that anyone can admire.
