The Revenant: Review and Recommendation

DiCaprio plays a man named Hugh Glass who is on an Alaskan expedition in the 1800's.  The movie begins with a battle scene between White people and a group of Native Americans, who the White people call tree niggers.  The battle forces DiCaprio and those in his group, who are still alive, to retreat from the area and move to another.  During the move, DiCaprio is viciously attacked by a Grizzly Bear impaling him to the point of near death.  DiCaprio is then lugged around by his fellow frontiersmen until the group must climb a mountain and carrying DiCaprio becomes unfeasible.  Three of DiCaprio's fellow frontiersmen, one being his son, volunteer to carry DiCaprio to a separate location until reinforcements arrive with suitable resources for dealing with the injured man.  During the time in which Dicaprio's character is under the watch of his son and the other two frontiersmen, some events unfold (I will not say what for spoilers sake) and DiCaprio is left for dead.

Since I do not want to provide any spoilers, I will merely provide a general summation of what happens next.  DiCaprio's character, after regaining his physical strength from the bear attack and being left for dead, sets out on what can only be described as a willful mission to find one person.  Along the way, DiCaprio faces what seems at times to be insurmountable obstacles such as: surviving the bitter cold Alaskan tundra, starvation, dehydration, attacks by Native Americans, and much more.   The audience is treated to a detailed viewing of one man's ability to survive and persevere with no means of support other than what is provided by the natural environment.  DiCaprio's character must resort to near primitive acts of survival such as eating bone marrow from a rotting carcass, gutting a horse and sleeping in it's body cavity for warmth, and eating live fish and raw buffalo meat.  The struggle for survival from DiCaprio's character is enough to keep anyone on the edge of their seat.

This film is full of action and suspense.  The suspense is mostly derived from not knowing whether DiCaprio's character is going to live from one moment to the next because he has so many harrowing events happen to him.  Moreover, there is quite a bit of gore in this movie which intensifies the elements of suspense.  Although there are plenty of action scenes, the film does have a few scenes that are slow and seemingly drag on longer than they needed to.  However, if you appreciate the scenery and aesthetics of the Alaskan wilderness, then you might not mind the scenes that allow the viewer to take it all in.

I recommend this movie to anyone who has the patience to sit through a detailed telling of one man's struggle and will to survive in the hostile Alaskan wilderness.  It helps if one continuously asked themselves throughout the film what he/she would do in DiCaprio's situation?  While the motivation behind DiCaprio's will to survive is nothing new to storytelling, it does provide the viewer an opportunity to empathize with the main character and know the lengths one will go to in order to achieve goal.  I do not recommend this movie for people who are turned off by intense situations as this film is very detailed and spares the viewer no time to collect themselves emotionally from one scene to the next.  Also, if one is turned off by gore and other violent antics, I do not recommend this movie for that individual.

Let us know what you thought about the movie in the comment section!