We know the whole thing of the Oscar’s have long now been and gone for 2016. There were some laughs, crying, some nonsensical messages about society and by now, everyone else will have been looking forward to instead for the summer blockbusters where we can all turn our brains off. Well, turn them off more than we already do. But, we weren’t not going to look at the one thing that people sort of cared about; Leonardo Dicaprio’s award winning performance in the Revenant.

Seriously, if the Odeon in Leicester Square was happy to change it’s name as a result of backing the start to get some shiny shiny, you know we couldn’t leave this one alone. So was this another bait film or actual something which would have stood on its own were it to have been released any other time of the year?

First of all, the director for this apparently was the same guy who directed Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu. which was actually looked at last year as part of Oscar Bait 2015 and it was…. an acquired taste at best. Despite a wonderful one-shot process throughout the entire film, I had to be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this one. Perhaps this is why I only came to watch this a few months after the release and all the hype had died down.

So what’s the Oscar winning film about? The Revenant tells the story of Leonardo Dicaprio (Oscar Winner) as a 19th century chap who as a tracker (I think, it was mentioned at some point, but honestly I don’t remember for sure) leads a group of people through the wilderness who are just wanting to return with pelts because they make money that way.

Leo has a American Indian son called Hawk (played by someone I can’t remember seeing in anything else before, Forrest Goodluck). They are just hanging around each other, being one with the world, hunting animals and enjoying the great outdoors of America because thanks to some handy and strange flashback sequences, we see that the mum had gone off to pastures dead. But don’t worry, we see more flashback type things later to reveal more of what happened. For now, keep that in your back pocket.

Quickly, someone grab the oscar now!

Shortly after we see the rest of the band of merry men out in the wilderness, speaking some kind of English we’re not entirely sure of. They are under the care of Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson aka that bloke who was the evil commander in Star Wars Episode 7, who we all knew was far too young to be in that kind of position) and we also see Tom Hardy as either a 19th century Bane impersonator or one of the failed rejects of ZZ Top. It’s hard to tell but we’ll fill you in on why later on.

Not long after everyone was having a bit of a rest, the majority of the expedition are lost due to the Indians getting pissed off for some reason which only gets alluded to halfway through the bloody thing. After a gripping river ride with debate as what to do next, the survivors ditch the boat and head back to civilisation on foot.

But one day, Leo himself is just wandering through the forest and then gets the bit we’ve all seen time and time again in the trailer for the film, a really big hug by a big CGI bear who may or may not have been concerned that Leo was going to shoot his / her kids.

Or it’s just torture porn. I’m not actually sure what’s the better description to be honest given the gruesome sequence which unfolded before my eyes. Seriously, it goes on for about 5 harrowing minutes and each time you’re wondering where it’s going to end. It’s not pretty.

So after Leo and the bear had bloody play time together with the bear lying on top of Leo as a lovely big dead fur coat, the survivors find that Leo’s knackered and isn’t dead despite bleeding out heavily. Given the medical care which could have been administered at the time not really being enough to save his life, he’s somehow still hanging in there. I honestly don’t know how.

BEAR HUG!

So everyone’s carrying him for ages through various areas of terrain and bad weather, get stuck and then because everyone has assumed he is about die, the Captain asks for a couple of men stay behind. Just so he can get a proper burial.

But oh no, in between the French selling the Indians some horses in exchange for stolen pelts to keep on chasing the expedition survivors, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, we have our main hairy bearded fella who we barely understand or care about, John Fitzgerald (Sorry, Tom Hardy) turn up and tries to off Leo before his time.

Hawk, being Leo’s son is naturally well not chuffed at this development and basically gets murdered by Tom Hardy as he tried to prevent this turn of events. He then leaves our Oscar winner for dead in a badly dug hole in the ground. Another chap who was hanging around with Tom Hardy to help, is forced to come with him to state that Leo is indeed dead.

Leo isn’t dead, as we all knew that from the trailer. Instead our Oscar winner comes around, finding himself buried in a shallow grave and abandoned by his team. He of course, is not chuffed about Tom murdering his son right in front of him and makes it his mission to face the mammoth journey back home in order to wreak revenge and hopefully get medical attention.

For the next hour or so, we see a mixture of hardship scenes where Leo is struggling to move, surviving all sorts of hardships (including ripping off the survival technique used by Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back), meeting a very helpful indian who looked after him for a bit before buggering off, and the inevitable confrontation between Leo and Tom after everyone learns the truth.

hbivhadbjhabvhsjhefbwjHEFBJHwebfvlhwBE sdhfbjasbb wejhfbusbv sefhjWJEFBJHBWEF SUEFwenfiusef (F**ked if I know what he really said…..)

So that’s the story aspects out of the way, without too many spoilers believe it or not, so what about the film itself? Well it would be entirely wrong for me to not reflect on the cinematography of the entire film. In essence, a lot of what steals the film is the nature on display throughout.

Some of the scenery is breathtaking to behold in it’s beauty that in essence, if the film was just the scenery in a screensaver mode on your computer, you would love every minute of it. The lighting, the organic sounds, it adds up to a wonderful setting which fits the harshness yet beauty of the times to a tee.

Granted however, one may suspect that a lot of these lingering shots were just padding out the film for a longer runtime. Is this perhaps too cynical a thought? In this case, perhaps it is as this easily manages to show nature at it’s best. Emmanuel Lubezki did win an Oscar for the film’s cinematography and it’s easy to see why.

But the rest of it, was hit and miss.

Did we need as many dream sequences to give the back story? Maybe not. There was one which maybe served to show the anguish he was going through as there was no other real way of doing so, but the rest, you could take them or leave them and I’m not sure what difference it would have made.

The vast majority of the problem for myself when watching this was with the sounds coming from a lot of the cast. Let me explain. It’s not Leo’s grunting and foaming at the mouth even if it makes up quite a bit of the movie. Nope, it’s something else.

You know earlier I remarked on the fact I couldn’t tell what Tom Hardy was meant to be? Well either Bane made a return from the “Dark Knight Returns” or that the spirit of Sam Elliott was channelled for Tom Hardy’s character. Why? I couldn’t understand the vast majority of what he was saying. So when it came to some seemingly important character development moments, I may as well have been cleaning out the fluff in my belly-button for all the difference it would have made.

Expect a massive upsurge in people joining the scouts soon.

He’s not the only one but the main culprit for sure. I had a hard time understanding a lot of the other cast members when they were around and it was only when subtitles came on for the different languages that it was clearer to follow. I know it’s a creative decision, perhaps in keeping with how people were speaking in those days. But we’ve still got to understand the f**kers on screen you know when they speak! It didn’t work out for Bane and it didn’t work out here either. So maybe we have to wait for the DVD release to get the subtitles we clearly needed.

As for the story itself, this is where I have doubts. I can suspend disbelief and get behind the film when Leo was getting himself going again despite suffering huge injuries, even at the speed of recovery was getting to the point of the Rocky theme music playing in my head and imagine Leo running up those famous steps in Philadelphia.

But when he survived without further injury at all from being pulled down river, or indeed after riding a horse off a f**king cliff with the horse dead on the ground, all bets were off. Oh and then right at the end the film tells us all it was “loosely based” on the true story. So how much of it was bulls*it? Well the son never existed for a start, so why the hell was he needed as motivation?

What about Leo himself? Was this an award winning performance for our leading man hell bent on revenge? I have to admit, he wasn’t too shabby all things considered. Granted a lot of the time, he had to play being injured and wheezed a lot of the time, but if nothing else he did at least do a lot with not saying a lot. He was a guy trying to survive in the wilderness and had to resort to a lot of basics to get through it all, taking us along for the ride.

But would have I said this was award winning? Remarkably I would say he was better in Django Unchained as the bile racist owner of Candyland who met his end at the hands of Christoph Waltz, or in the Departed as an undercover cop and those should have had recognition. Here he was good enough to carry himself and the plot forward as we all went towards the finale with what he had to work with, which at times, wasn’t that much.

Verdict Time

Ok, this film’s time at the cinema has now come and gone, so would I recommend you seeing this when the various outlets give you the chance? Yes I would. The Revenant is one of those films that is alright. Nothing to shout over the rooftops about and get overly excited over but at least worth a single viewing, if only for the visual feast your eyes will have.

On this occasion, it’s not humanity which steals the show, it’s nature itself with wonderful scenery you never get bored of. Hopefully, with subtitles for everyone speaking when it’s released on disc and online, it would then even understandable all the time too.