Alison Rowat film review: The Revenant

Dir: Alejandro González Iñárritu

With: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson

Runtime: 156 minutes

DAVID Tennant famously spoke for 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation on the BBC radio show Just A Minute on the subject of “Exit, pursued by a bear”. One fancies even the eloquent Scot might find himself speechless at what a bear does to Leonardo DiCaprio in the brilliant but savage The Revenant.

First, it is not what you might expect given the more lurid headlines that at one time attached themselves to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s drama. But proceedings between the Grizzly and the star of the Wolf of Wall Street may well haunt your thoughts for long after witnessing. Native Americans held a bear attack to be among the worst fates that could befall a person. After watching The Revenant, based on the novel by Michael Punke, they will get no arguments from this viewer.

DiCaprio, playing real life explorer and guide Hugh Glass, does not of course die. That much you will have gleaned from the film’s back from the dead title. But the suffering his character goes through does make one believe that sometimes there just might be a fate worse than death.

When first we meet Glass he is showing a motley crew of pelt hunters and soldiers through the woods. It is 1823, frontiers America, where knowing the land, and how to use a gun, can keep a man alive. In this situation, Glass is an asset. Once the bear attack turns him into a liability, the upstanding captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), after seeking advice from wildman John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), takes the only decision he feels he can.

What happens next plays out over 156 minutes. That is 156 minutes which are often gruelling. Minutes in which the brutal cold on screen seeps its way into your bones. Minutes where you, never mind poor Leo, just want to curl up and hope to heaven that it is all over soon.

But there are plenty of spells of sheer beauty amid the savagery, and moments to melt the flintiest heart. If DiCaprio does not win an Oscar nomination today [THURSDAY] for his efforts here he might as well give up and become an MSP. The film has already won three Golden Globes - for best actor, director and film.

Iñárritu’s camera hardly leaves DiCaprio’s side for a second, as well it might. When it does, it is to drink in the Louisiana landscape in all its snow drenched glory. Every shot is stunning, calling to mind no less a poet of the landscape than Ansel Adams.

Where the director of Birdman, Babel and Amores Perros is truly in his element, though, is pitting his leading man against the elements and fate. While Hardy, Will Poulter and Gleeson distinguish themselves, the audience, like the director, will be captivated by DiCaprio and his portrayal of a man adrift in several kinds of wilderness, both heavenly and hellish.