The Revenant – A Review By Marilyn Penn
http://politicalmavens.com/
The fee for screenwriter for The Revenant must be the highest ever paid if you count the actual number of words in the script – for the overlong mid-section, the film is virtually silent. Alejandro Inarritu, the recent Oscar winner for Birdman, has fashioned a tedious survival epic out of difficult circumstances, harsh injuries and heavy breathing. The plot can be summarized in two sentences: Mountain guide leading fur trappers is repeatedly mauled by a huge bear, is left to die, survives that, starvation, a tempestuous body skim down some rapids, along with a Thelma and Louise soar off a cliff on horseback, landing in a tree, then falling to the ground. Despite all of the above plus the trauma of seeing his only son killed, he lives to trek across the snowy wilderness, eat raw buffalo meat. carve a protective bed out of a horse carcass, listen to the spirit of his dead Indian wife, attack the man who murdered his son and ultimately recognize that only God can exact revenge. Most of this becomes predictable as soon as we see Leonardo de Caprio stir from his comatose state and realize that this movie is more superman cartoon than biography. Even though there was a man whose life provided the inspiration for this film, he’s less a realized individual than an avatar of legendary mountain men. We know he’s better than most because he married an Indian woman and loves his half-breed son; also, because he leaves the ultimate job of executioner to someone else in a burst of spiritual awareness.
We know that Tom Hardy is a bad news villain from the get go and guess what? He is. The only surprise in this trudge through 19th century American hardship is than an Indian actually admits that his tribe was attacked by other Indians, not the nasty white men. Well, that’s a small bit of honesty in this hokey bit of wallowing in the muck. Judging from the number of viewers who got up repeatedly during the 2 and 1/2 hour screening, this will remain a film critic’s delight that may tank at the box office. Despite not a moment’s doubt about how Leonardo would fare, I did worry about what happened to those cubs after Mama Bear was killed. We never
Comments are closed.
