How Much Pain Can DiCaprio Take?

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2016)

The Revenant (2015)
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu The Revenant follows the true story of the frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) who was raped by a wild Grizzly Bear (no not really, just attacked, although in some shots it... never mind, lets just say he's hurt very badly) and left for dead in the wilderness in the 1820's.
From its opening, the film establishes a cold and brutal environment seen through beautiful long takes and stunning, vivid landscapes, which all work together to convey a tremendously unsettling unpredictability from start to finish. Inarritu clearly utilises the skills he picked up from Birdman and puts them to even better use here. This is a cinematic film in every sense of the word from its incredibly wide and immersive visuals which, at times, make you feel surrounded by action, to its loud, at some points, booming score and terrific performances.
Speaking of which, if this is the film that finally gets Leo that Oscar, I for one will be happy. He is perfect. His co-star Tom Hardy demonstrates an unusually cruel yet as usual hard to understand performance, I must admit the subtitles at my screening were for once a welcomed aide in deciphering the Hardy grumble. That being said, together with Domhnall Gleeson (who by the way has probably had the best year of his career already) who also does a great job in this movie, the cast all round was pretty spectacular.
Okay, now to some of the bad. First off, it's long... very long. At two hours and thirty-six minutes the movie does test the viewers patients, especially when every scene is colder and more painful than the one before. However if you enjoy watching Leonardo DiCaprio going from a bad situation to a worse for 156 minutes, this won't bother you. I will admit that the film slows down at a point where I felt it didn't need to and so begins to drag, but DiCaprio's performance was strong enough to keep me engaged through the entire run time, however I also have to acknowledge that this won't be the case for everyone.
Secondly, in at least two dialogue scenes, the person talking was clearly not the voice we were hearing, since the sound and the moving mouth were completely out of sync. I'm not quite sure if this was a stylistic choice, since the likelihood of it having accidental slipped through editing seems unimaginable, but In any event, it completely pulled my attention away from the film and made me wonder what the hell was going on.
In truth, this is a film unlike any that I've ever seen; the visuals alone are incredible to the point where I have no idea how they were able to capture them with a camera. (I mean the bear scene, how did they film that? No seriously... how? Watch it, tell me, I need an answer.) If that isn't impressive enough it is worth pointing out that the movie was made without the use of studio lighting, that means: the sun, the moon, live fires and that's it. Additionally you will never have the right to feel cold after watching this film, ever. However cold you think you could be, Hugh Glass was probably colder. It is abundantly clear that this movie was made for the big screen and demands to be viewed as such, so go watch it, go watch it big.
The Revenant: 8.4/10