DiCaprio Holds Together An Over-Rated But Watchable Movie

Rating: 6/10 (27 October 2017)

I was surprised to discover that "The Revenant" was based on a true story - then disappointed to learn that it was only very loosely based on a true story - a lot of important details in the movie (like Glass's Pawnee wife and son) are simply not true, and the real story of Hugh Glass wasn't really a revenge story. What was true was the bear attack. I was familiar with the silly story about Leonardo DiCaprio (or really Glass, his character) being "raped" by the bear. That was utterly ridiculous. The movie made clear that this was a female bear with cubs nearby. Why anyone would start such a story is beyond me. It was a bear attack - a pretty vicious one that was very well portrayed. And, as I said, it's really the primary connection to the real story of Hugh Glass.
Set in 1823, the movie starts strongly, with a depiction of an Indian attack on a group of American fur traders. That's very well choreographed. In fact, overall - including the depiction of the bear attack and the choreography of the Indian attack - the strongest part of the movie is probably the work of director Alejandro Inarritu. His work was excellent. All throughout the movie you see great camera work, excellent photography and spectacular scenery. All that is so good - and, in fact, it's almost too much. It seems to take over the movie at times. That's probably because the story as a whole didn't exactly enthrall me. The movie is set up as a revenge story, with Glass hunting down Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) - who had killed his half Pawnee son. As I said, that's fake, and really the movie doesn't emphasize the revenge element. This is really a survival story - and there are times when you wonder how Glass survived. How did he survive the wounds from the bear attack? How did he survive the raging river and waterfall? Why didn't he freeze to death once he got out of the river, soaking wet in the middle of winter with snow on the ground? How did he survive the plunge over the cliff? He's almost superhuman - the survival scenes are too unbelievable to make Glass a character you can really empathize with. There are also more than a few cringe worthy moments. There is that gruesome bear attack. There's Glass cauterizing his own wounds. There's Glass gutting the horse so he can crawl in to stay warm. Yeah. I was wincing a few times. But those are scattered throughout the story, and for long periods there's not much to fall back on but the scenery and photography. It's beautiful, yes, but some of it could probably have been taken out for the sake of making a tighter and more focused movie.
Having said that, the story did grow on me as it went along and came closer to the climactic confrontation between Glass and Fitzgerald. I admit my attention wandered a few times, but I was never tempted to just step away from this. DiCaprio offered a basically one man show for extended periods, and was all right doing that. I've probably seen actors pull it off better than he did (Tom Hanks in Cast Away, James Franco in 127 Hours, maybe even Robert Redford in All Is Lost all come to mind) but DiCaprio was pretty good in holding it all together. And I did like the ending. The final scenes in which Glass finally confronts Fitzgerald were very well done. It wasn't true, but it was well done. Interestingly, I also found a pretty consistent spiritual theme running through the movie - which I wasn't actually expecting.
I think this is a bit over-rated, but it was worth watching. (6/10)