If this doesn't get Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar win, I don't know what will.

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2015)

The terms "immersive" and "visceral" are often loosely used, but THE REVENANT has taken strong ownership of them, and all it takes is director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's sharp and creative directing and maestro cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's distinctive camera style and seamless edits that take us through the landscape, up close and personal. THE REVENANT is one of those films that will be talked about for generations to come, whether it be at a film school among students and experts or at a coffee shop among aficionados who've just seen one of the most incredible films ever.
The character Hugh Glass is a legend when it comes to the history of the frontier, these are the times before the things we often associate with wild wild west. Writer/director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and co-scribe Mark L. Smith take source from Michael Punke's novel but they put a fictional twist of their own on this actual historical character, played in the film by the great Leonardo DiCaprio. In this film, Hugh Glass has a mixed race son because he was once had native-American wife, Glass and his son join fur-trapping business that got attacked by the natives, one of the people in their expedition is John Fitzgerald, played by Tom Hardy. One day, Glass gets mauled by a bear and left for dead by his team members. Fitzgerald is one of the three staying behind to care for Glass and to give him a proper burial should he passes. But Fitzgerald kills Glass' son and takes off instead, an event which then motivates Glass to survive in his relentless pursuit of revenge.
Whether it be interior like "Birdman" or outdoors like "The Revenant," Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a director who's committed to taking the audience to fully experience because he understands the wide range and the scale and he also fully understands the stories of these characters and he smartly conveys them to you. Yes, it's a primal existential survival story, yes it's also a revenge and redemption story, yes it's also father and son story, but the way Alejandro films it, the way he tells it, makes THE REVENANT more nuanced than that. And just like how this film manages to transport you to a land and time that's rarely tackled in cinema, it also successfully transports visual spectacle to a new height that's never before seen nor felt. The sequence in which Leonardo DiCaprio's Hugh Glass gets mauled by a bear, for example, it's as if you could feel Glass and the bear's breath. This is also why Lubezki is one of the greatest of all-time because his cinematography aims to make you feel like you're present there, you see the angles, the edges of the screen, everything about it is very welcoming, very inclusive.
This is Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance yet, one of the things that makes him a great actor is that he's clever in his rhythmical movement and facial expressions, he's on point, he knows how to make a scene more emotional or more intense, this is an actor who gives his all for his characters, and you see that dedication once again in THE REVENANT, working in toughest most uncomfortable conditions, he even strips down naked, Leo's devotion to this character, Hugh Glass, is admirable. Tom Hardy also gives an equally outstanding performance as the villain, Fitzgerald, who's only looking out for number one, what matters to Fitzgerald are himself and his ambitions, he doesn't have a problem with kicking integrity or honor to the curb if need be. And so when Hugh Glass ultimately gets in the way, it's kill or be killed mode for Fitzgerald and Hardy, with his sturdy intimidating stature, accomplishes that.
THE REVENANT is a beautifully shot film, much of it will remind you of the works of writer/director Terrence Malick, whom Emmanuel Lubezki collaborated with several times including "The New World." There's something majestic, something grand about THE REVENANT and at the same time, there's also something inspiring and hopeful about it. THE REVENANT is a work of art, a masterpiece.