"The Revenant" has greatness within it, but is not a great film as a whole.

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2016)

Sometimes two movies come out at the same time and share a lot of elements even though they're completely unrelated. For example, the parallels between two films which both came out in limited release on December 25, 2015 (even though one went into wide release before the other) are striking. I'm referring to "The Hateful Eight" and "The Revenant" (R, 2:36).
Both movies take place in the 19th century American west, are set completely in the wilderness and include a lot of snow. In both films, men die by shootings and stabbings, women are abused and even killed, someone takes a drink and ends up spitting out blood, at one point, there's a naked man wandering in the cold and, later on, someone is hanged. Each movie even contains a brief scene in which someone catches snowflakes with the tongue. I could go on, but suffice it to say there's an unusual number of similarities between these two films, considering how different they are. While "The Hateful Eight" is a completely fictional tale with multi-layered characters, an interesting story and even some light-hearted moments, "The Revenant" is an even simpler story, which is mainly about one man, and is dead serious – and even semi-fictional.
"The Revenant" is the film adaptation of Michael Punke's 2002 novel of the same name, which is inspired by a true story. The book takes some liberties with the truth. The film takes even more. The truth in the story is that, in 1823, fur trapper Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his companions, but, having been abandoned, he still managed to limp, shuffle and crawl over 200 miles to Fort Kiowa in present-day South Dakota.
This is another one of those movies (like "In the Heart of the Sea") which, rather than just telling a fictional story with fictional characters, takes an incredible true story and uses the names of real people, but also inserts main characters which weren't part of the actual story, changes the motivations and fates of the real people and tells a story of half-truths. Well beyond taking dramatic license, films like this often leave many people with a perpetual misperception of historical events that will never be corrected. (I'm saying all this now, because doing so during my plot summary would result in spoilers.) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Glass, an experienced hunter and guide who once lived with the Pawnee Indians, married a Pawnee woman and, in the movie, has a teenage Pawnee son (Forrest Goodluck) with him on this particular expedition. When the men come under a sudden and brutal attack by a group of Arikara Indians (Rees, for short), they run for their boats, carrying as many bundles of their beaver pelts as they can get away with. Having lost over 30 men in the attack, Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), the leader of the quasi-military hunting party, rallies his remaining men and orders them to start heading back to their trading post at Fort Kiowa.
With the journey barely underway, Glass is attacked by a large brown bear protecting her cubs. He is mauled so badly that the men in his party hold out no hope for his survival. It becomes impossible for them to carry him over the increasingly rough terrain, so Henry leaves Glass in the care of his son, Hawk, the young Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), and experienced trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). "When" Glass dies, they are to bury him properly and then catch up with the group. Fitzgerald, unfortunately, is a man who only cares about protecting his own hide and selling as many beaver hides as he can. He soon takes actions which prevent the two young men from staying and looking after Glass.
The rest of the movie remains focused primarily on DiCaprio's character, but tells three stories simultaneously. Glass basically wills himself to survive and improve enough to try to get himself to Fort Kiowa. Still badly injured, he literally drags himself toward his destination, doing his best to survive in spite of his wounds, the rough terrain, the worsening weather conditions and lack of food. He also has to make sure that he steers clear of the Rees. They continue to be a presence throughout the film, as their chief (Anthony Starlight) leads his men in search of his missing daughter (Melaw Nakehk'o), whom he believes was taken by white men in the area. Meanwhile, the men who left Glass behind are making their way back to their trading post, unaware that Glass is still alive – and is coming for his revenge.
"The Revenant" is a great achievement in some ways, but not a great film. The main reason to see this movie is the acting, especially DiCaprio's performance. Leo completely immerses himself in his character's suffering and deserves an Oscar for everything he went through to deliver such a powerful performance. The problem with the movie is that it's almost all about the central character's physical and emotional pain, making for one depressing movie. The scenes of the bear attack and one harrowing escape from the Rees are both remarkable, but dragging out this character's suffering for as long as co-writer and director Alejandro González Iñárritu does, makes for an unnecessarily long movie. However, the movie's eventful final thirty minutes did help justify the time I had invested. Seeing this film is an endurance test – physically, emotionally and intellectually (for those of us who know how the story really unfolded) – but seeing Leo portray his character's endurance so effectively is just this side of being worth it. "B"