“The Revenant” review

After the most recent blockbuster of the famed Star Wars saga usurped the  box office throne for four straight weekends making a total of $1,886,734,016 worldwide, many other movies released in the past month were left in the dust.

One of those movies released in the past month was “The Revenant” which features Leonardo Dicaprio and Tom Hardy battling in the harsh winter of pre Civil War America. The movie is the embellished true story of Hugh Glass, a fur trapper, who is left to die by his crew after enduring a brutal encounter with a bear.

Viewers watch him swirl down icy river rapids, scratch his way up cliff-faces, and shiver in the starlight while his beard grows stiff with frost. In one scene, he devours the still-throbbing liver of a freshly slaughtered bison, the organ hot and slippery in his trembling hands.

Every last grunt and stomp of effort is there to be felt in the finished film, and one senses DiCaprio and director Alejandro Iñárritu wouldn’t have it any other way. The film ends with Glass staring directly into the camera.

“The Revenant” is two and a half hours of cold, harsh humanity and is certainly worth the watch.