DiCaprio steals the show

Rating: 9/10 (10 May 2019)

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's "The Revenant" is without a doubt one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've ever seen and is also one of the most violent, it isn't a perfect but it has enough qualities in it that make it as good as it is. Leonardo DiCaprio won a long awaited best actor Oscar three years ago for his excellent performance as Hugh Glass a frontiersman and fur trapper on an expedition in the extremely cold wilderness in the early 1820's and his group of other trappers includes John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), as well as Captain Andrew Henry (Dohmnall Gleeson) among others. After we get to know the characters a little bit we see Glass in the woods by himself hunting for animals and finds a bear that ends up mauling him to the point where he's so badly beaten up that he nearly dies and is left for dead by his own fellow trappers. After Glass wakes up and discovers this he sets out for revenge against those who betrayed him. Leonardo DiCaprio gives the finest performance I've ever seen from him in a movie for a role which he went all out in preparation for and totally deserved that Oscar for, Tom Hardy is also very good here and got a well deserved best supporting actor nomination as a result. The acting is strong, the direction is very good, and the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki is nothing short of breathtaking. The only thing I would say about this movie that I had a problem with was that at points in the film it seemed a little drawn out with DiCaprio's mission to seek revenge on those who left him for dead but it is also understandable because it's his movie. The movie was actually filmed in the harsh weather conditions that are actually seen throughout its over two and a half hour runtime. Iñárritu is without a doubt one of the best directors of the last twenty years and part of the great Hollywood trio of Mexican filmmakers along with Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro, and so far out of the three films I've seen that Iñárritu directed not one was bad. This is one of 2015's very best films.