CREDIT: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2015)
With excellent casting and a perilous setting, The Revenant is a fi lm that demands your attention.

Set somewhere in the West in the 1820s, The Revenant tells the story of Hugh Glass, a man who was left for dead after barely surviving a gruesome grizzly attack. Based on a true story, the movie adds some creative flourishes while attempting to maintain as true to the times as possible.

First off, this is a movie that was incredibly well cast. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy have already proven themselves to be great actors, and this movie gives both ample opportunity to display their ability to its fullest. DiCaprio completely loses the smooth pretty-boy persona the audience is far more used to seeing from him, completely falling into the rough character of Glass.

However, the leads are far from the most compelling characters in this movie. That honour instead goes to the supporting cast, especially those in First Nations roles. Along with being culturally appropriate, every single one of the First Nations actors did a truly incredible job. Melaw Nakehk’o, in her role as Powaqa, manages to put more emotion into a single look than half the cast puts into the entire movie.

The fact that these characters, especially Powaqa, are so compelling actually becomes a bit of a problem for the film. While Glass’ story is plenty thrilling and inspirational, the subplots take away a lot of the focus. Instead, the audience is often left wondering what happened to other characters as the movie jumps from one group to another with little care for continuity.

These side-stories are often fascinating, but almost too much so. An entire second movie could have been done about Glass’ past, even if a decent chunk of that was made up for this movie, and Powaqa’s personal struggle both could and should have been given a lot more time.

Even with the bouncing around in The Revenant, the intensity of the situation is never really lost. Perhaps these side-stories were meant to prevent the type of feeling given in a movie like The Road, where the film generates a constant tension in the audience that leaves them completely exhausted by the experience.

A big part of the intensity The Revenant has is in the landscape, the vast uncharted forests of Alberta and British Columbia. The dangers of Canada in the winter are well known to all of us who live here, and, knowing what we do in the cold, watching someone survive it, especially when constantly wet and severely injured, almost completely defies belief. While other aspects were rewritten, this part of the story was close to the true events.

Overall, The Revenant is a wellcast and intense story of overcoming truly impossible odds. While the plot skips around more than one might like and the framing choices are often weird and uncomfortable, the scenes that are focussed on are beyond compelling, drawing the audience in with every new challenge.