Chilly

Rating: 3/10 (10 February 2016)

My wife didn't want to see The Revenant because she thought it might've been a bit blokey with all manner of violence and blood and miscellaneous gore. And in truth she probably wouldn't have liked it very much. So I went with a blokey-bloke , on a sort of mandate but there certainly wasn't any handholding and personal spaces were very much respected.
The movie is about a grizzled frontiersman with good teeth who, in the tradition of cinematic grizzled frontiersman was married to a native American who dies when she is shot and a bird flies out of her. The grizzled frontiersman with good teeth is called 'Glass' and played by Lenny DiCaprio Glass and his mates slaughter gazillions of merkins and they are attacked by vengeful native Americans who force them to row down the river. They get off the boat for reasons that eluded me but there were icebergs.
Glass sees some bear cubs and their mother sees him and, possibly having experience with grizzled frontiersmen with guns (or perhaps she had seen 'Titanic'), gives him an absolute flogging. She ambles off happy that lessons have been learned but they haven't and she returns to give him an even more severer lesson and Glass shoots her and stabs her and she is dead. We are given no information on what happens to the cubs. I hope they survived.
Glass doesn't die but more bad stuff happens to him than you could poke a stick at and he is bent on revenge. Most of the bad stuff is the result of a villain called Fitzgerald and a partial burial.
Other bad stuff happens too and is the result of the French who are likely all called 'Lucky Pierre'. Hey; it's an American movie! Americans hate the French after they sensibly and quite correctly stayed out of Iraq. I know some French folk and the loathing is reciprocated. I digress.
In keeping with the need for white grizzled frontiersmen to be seen as fully rounded, modern, caring sensitive and sympathetic, Glass meets a new native American bestie (with whom he shares Bison Liver Tartare) and saves a chiefs daughter from a fate worse than death involving Lucky Pierre. The bison was killed by a pack of digital wolves. To further prove empathy Glass looks sadly at piles of Bison skulls that appear at random throughout the film. The fate of the skulls he was responsible for are not recorded, but beaver skulls are pretty little I guess and without cinematic appeal.
In truth, the vengeance trail is more than a little Wile E Coyote. Every time he is about to succeed in his quest, something horrid and deadly happens to him but he inexplicably survives to continue his quest for the villainous Road Runner, Fitzy. Armed (presumably) with ACME powder and matches he keeps on keeping on. In a biblical twist, he is born-again! From a holy horse.
Leonardo doesn't have a face that lends itself to looking vengeful.
He has a magic coat that keeps him warm and toasty even after swimming in icy rivers. He is a good swimmer too.
In summary it is as plausible as a Bristol Palin abstinence lecture. But there is lots and lots of really REALLY nice scenery and it was all I could do to stop myself 'ooohing' and 'aaaahing' at the majesty of it. There is a lot of snow and sundry chilliness and you should wear a jumper if you see it, particularly if you are a sympathy-shiverer.