Vengeance will be done

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2016)

I'm not really sure why I went and saw this film, or what to even expect. I guess the title attracted me a little, namely because it refers to a mythological undead creature who returns to enact revenge upon somebody. The idea is that the revenant has had such an injustice committed against it that it cannot rest in peace until that injustice has been rightened, and the injustice usually involves some sort of murder (either against the revenant or somebody close to it), and the vengeance usually involves the murder of the perpetrators of that injustice.
Basically that is what this movie is about, though the main character, Hugh Glass, isn't actually killed (but he comes pretty close to being in such a state). Basically he is a member of a fur trapping party that is attacked by native Americans (who are hunting the kidnappers of one of their daughters) and are forced to flee across the wilderness back to their home base. On the way Glass is attacked and mauled by a bear, but manages to survive – barely (and I must admit that the scene where we was being mauled by the bear was brilliant). However it becomes increasingly clear that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get him back home, so they leave him with a couple of others until help arrives (or until he dies, whichever comes first). Mind you, one of the guys, Fitzgerald, isn't a big fan of Glass, so when the others have left, he kills Glass's son, and then buries Glass alive.
The rest of the movie is basically Glass crawling his way across the frozen wilderness seeking to avenge the murder of his son. In fact the first half of the movie is the lead up to him being left for dead, and the rest of the movie is him (and the others) making their way back to the fort. To say that it does drag on a bit is an understatement. Okay, it doesn't drag on in the sense that it is boring, but it does feel that it probably could have been a lot shorter. Mind you, we are talking about a movie that goes on for about two hours, and I'm not sure how much of the movie was needed (though I suspect that the original idea could have been a lot longer). Still, I guess the length of the movie is supposed to give us the impression of how sparse and empty this wilderness is, and the amount of time that it actually takes to return to civilisation.
A part of me also felt that there may have been a couple of anachronisms. In fact for much of the movie I was trying to work out in which year it was set, and the reason that I was a little confused was because the Indians were seeking out some French fur traders (and these fur traders appear every so often). The odd thing I found is that the French had sold the Louisiana Territories to the United States in the early 19th Century, though I suspect that there were probably still a number of French fur trappers lurking around their afterwards (it is unlikely that all of the French living there packed up and went home as soon as Napoleon sold the territories to the United States).
In the end it was an okay movie. At times it felt like a western, though with most westerns the underlying theme is the idea of taming the west and bringing civilisation to the wilderness. In this film it is a battle against the wilderness and the wilds, but also the desire of one man to seek vengeance against the murder of his son. In a way he is over coming the harsh reality of the empty (and cold) wilderness to see vengeance done, to overcome the human limitations (we are always confronted with the reality that this is a cold and desolate place). The fact that he manages to survive the freezing climate to finally confront his enemy goes to show the length that some people will go to to seek vengeance.