Wasted opportunity

Rating: 4/10 (29 February 2016)

First of all, I very much like survival movies in the wild. I also am interested in the history of the era and location. The trappers, the Métis, the different Indian nations and bands, the voyageurs, the men, the (indigenous) women,... And the film starts promising with great photography and a fitting score. Everything seems set for a breathtaking movie. Alas, it soon turns out that the characters are totally underdeveloped. Especially the main character and his son. We know little about them except for the tragedy that befell their wife / mother. It leaves us in the cold with not even a carcass to hide in. The revenant is a caricature of groaning and limping. Not such good acting at all. Then Leonardo deserved it far more in other films such as "J. Edgar". The opening battle scene is spectacular, but largely unrealistic. The motivation for the attack is also ambiguous and far-fetched. A historical travesty. The daughter of the Arikara chief was supposedly kidnapped by a group of voyageurs, apparently as it turns out later for the sake of lust and sadism. Why would the voyageurs deliberately make enemies in such a way while there was much more to be gained by a Marriage 'à la façon du pays' with an Indian woman of importance? This was far more the custom with them than with – what the director would call – "the Anglos". The relations between the French-speaking voyageurs and the natives was in general a lot better than between the Americans and the natives. The voyageurs needed local allies and suppliers of food far more than the Americans with their forts. In fact one of the reasons for the Arikara war was that the Americans undermined the position of the Arikara of middlemen in the fur trade. But Hollywood has to give it a spin and introduce and outside source of absolute evil. All of the other protagonists have rational motivations – even John Fitzgerald and mother bear. Then the film becomes simply ridiculous when – after being badly mauled by the bear and having had to recover for a lengthy period – the hero stumbles upon the kidnapped girl and frees her from the camp of voyageurs (who else?) while the Arikara supposedly attacked the Americans to steal the pelts to trade them for horses from voyageurs in order to be able to catch up with the kidnappers, who must have left easy tracks in the snow and barren winter landscape. Go figure! Finally when the revenant has recovered from his terrible wounds and infections he goes after John Fitzgerald for a two-way slaughter party of gaping wounds. I guess there was not enough blood yet for an Oscar-worthy movie?