Spoiler Alert:
I shall be resuscitating The Revanant, digging up its past and examining its body of work to determine if it’s coming up or going down. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Revenant, or don’t plan to.
I thought I’d finished with these reviews for a while, tbh, having returned from my summer hols with a desire to do less and watch more. However, when I saw this website was still receiving over a thousand hits a day, I decided to continue a little longer to see where it takes me. Thanks, then, for your continued support, lurking and trolling.
0:01:38 The film begins with an evil bloke burning a family’s tepee. This for those who like their Indian warmed up. (I heartily apologize for the fact that I was not brought up politically correctly.)
[N.B. The real Hugh Glass was rumoured to have lived for several years with Pawnee Native Americans who had captured him.]
0:04:38 Leonardo DiCaprio slogs through the mud in an olde tyme forest to shoot an elk. His mates at the edge of the woods only want to stick in the mud. I get this, as my friends are quite dirty as well.
0:06:04 A naked, injured man stumbles into the camp where trappers are skinning dead animals. The bloke whose skin wants saving is simply bait to lure out the other trappers so Arikara tribesmen can let loose an assault of arrows on the lot of them. More than one unhappy camper gets the point.
0:19:08 Leonardo portrays Hugh Glass (and I’m sure his friends called him Huge Ass), a sort of guide who is leading the group of fur trappers and their pelts to the safety of a fort. He’s travelling with his son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). The boy is half-blood, but full of it.
[N.B. There is no record of Hugh Glass ever having had children.]
0:24:53 The scene where the bear simulates raping Hugh is well shot and reminiscent of some of my wilder parties.
0:27:34 Note to self: Bears do not like being shot in the face anymore than you or I, but they can do more about it.
0:42:02 On his death cot in the middle of the forest, Glass has flashbacks to when his wife was killed by marauding soldiers. As his wife is American Indian, we see all the ways he ‘went Native’.
[N.B. There are no official records to support the long-standing rumour that Hugh Glass was married to anyone, let alone a Native American.]
0:42:38 Three men volunteer to stay behind with Glass while the others save their skins. John Fitzgerald (an Academy Award worthy Tom Hardy), Glass’s son Hawk, and Jim Bridger (a Will Poulter who, even surrounded by talent, still holds his own). Fitzgerald has already started digging a grave for Glass, but you shouldn’t count your chickens before they dispatch.
[N.B. This is actually the part of the film which is closest to reality. After Glass was mauled, General William Henry Ashley (merged into the also real person Andrew Henry in the film) asked for two volunteers (the real Glass had no son) to stay behind and bury Glass after he died. Jim Bridger (19 years old) and John Fitzgerald (23) were those volunteers.]
0:43:45 Fitzgerald explains the Native Americans are the ones who gave him his haircut when they attempted to scalp more than his tickets.
Tom Hardy is acting the shite out of his role. Wouldn’t it have been funny if he’d won an Oscar for this and DiCaprio hadn’t? #FunnyAndFair
0:46:37 Fitzgerald begs Glass to blink if he’s willing for Fitzgerald to put him out of everyone’s misery. When he does and Fitzgerald begins to smother him, Hawk interrupts them like a mother when her son forgets to lock the bathroom door.
0:47:26 To keep Hawk quiet, Fitzgerald stabs him a lot and repeatedly. This proves to be an effective method.
0:51:47 Jim and Fitz leave Glass half-buried in a shallow grave, so that they might run away from approaching Native Americans. This makes sense as Glass has had both feet in the grave for awhile now.
[The real Bridger and Fitzgerald abandoned Glass, claiming they escaped Arikara Native Americans. The pair took Glass’s weapons and equipment with them when they fled.]
0:54:16 The majority of this film is watching Glass suffer inordinately for over two hours. Like when I watch a Nicolas Cage movie.
0:59:21 Fitzgerald admits he lied about the invading natives to get Jim to move on and leave Glass behind. He says in doing so he saved Jim’s life, but from the way Jim’s reacting, that’s a savings that could have been better off spent.
1:00:05 Glass wakes up next to his dead son, wishing he himself were dead tired. #Literally
1:03:32 For dinner, he has a bone to pick with a dead horse.
1:07:21 He cauterizes his neck wound with burning moss on the end of a twig. This explains where National Health Care learned it.
1:11:58 The water in which he’s swimming to escape the Native Americans is cold to the point that DiCaprio’s testicles climbed so high, he’s teabagging himself.
1:19:23 WTF!? At the same moment a flipping comet plummets to the earth, Glass discovers a pyramid made of perfectly stacked cattle skulls. Here I thought LSD was a 20th century invention.
1:21:09 He catches a fish in a tidal pool and invents sushi.
1:25:54 Glass meets a Native American man who shares the dead buffalo he’s eating. Glass invents steak tartare.
1:28:08
My heart bleeds…but revenge is in the creator’s hands.
The Native American who adopts Glass after they swap dead family stories
This is the theme of the entire film, and explains why Native Americans were nearly wiped out.
1:32:54 Fitz and Jim make it back to the camp where their Captain (Domhnall Gleeson as Captain Andrew Henry) is waiting for them. Jim feels guilty over lying about how they abandoned Glass. Fitzgerald just takes his money and leaves. He who laughs last, usually has the cash.
1:33:54 Wax was used in DiCaprio’s beard to simulate ice. #Candleinthebeard #Meltin’John
1:35:56
1:38:32 Dream sequences put me to sleep.
1:40:34 His Native American mate built him some protection and gave him some supplies before leaving like a Frenchman with two children.
1:41:10 Speaking of Frenchmen, the Frenchies caught up with the Native American and hung him while Glass recuperated. They hung the man and a sign, which reads – in French – “We are all savages.” Some of us more than others.
1:44:48 Glass sneaks up on the French group to steal one of their horses and to rescue the squaw they’re using as a sex doll. Interesting that the filmmakers have once again chosen to make the French the “bad guys”. It makes sense, though, when you realize they couldn’t realistically include a Muslim.
1:45:44 The Native American woman cut off the soldier’s nether head. Now what’s he supposed to think with?
1:45:51 WTF!? Two men dancing together in a tavern!? So that’s how those other blokes broke their backs on the mountain.
1:47:32 In a New Year’s Eve celebration, Captain Henry tells Fitzgerald that Fitz will not get paid until the pelts are recovered. The Captain adds that he marked the $300 bonus as excess expenditures Fitzgerald made, rather than the fee that had been agreed upon. Fitzgerald now has at least one new resolution: Kill Henry.
1:50:22 Wonderful shot, and I don’t mean the arrow in the horse’s flank.
1:52:44 This happened.
1:53:10
1:58:14 A Frenchman arrives at the fort with Glass’s canteen. Fitz looks as happy to see the French as a fat snail.
2:00:01 Glass is found, but they keep calling him Jesus Christ.
2:01:36 Fitzgerald bugged out with the fort’s cash, headed for Texas. Seems as though it was a home to criminals even back in olden times.
[N.B. The real John Fitzgerald joined the army and was stationed in what is now the state of Nebraska. Everything that happens in the film from this point on did not really happen!]
2:07:52 The Captain and Glass go on a manhunt. Like me every Friday night.
2:11:32 Fitzgerald kills and scalps the Captain. Hair today, gone today too.
2:14:21 Glass tricks Fitzgerald by propping up the Captain’s corpse with a stick in a rider’s position, while he himself lies under a blanket on the back of the second horse as if he were the corpse. Fitzgerald shoots the corpse disguised as Glass and when he approaches, Glass waits patiently for Fitzgerald to realize it’s a trap and aim his rifle, before shooting Fitz. WTF!?
2:22:19 After a bloody good fight scene, Glass remembers the line about revenge being in God’s hands, so he sends the fatally wounded Fitzgerald to float ten metres down the river to where bloodthirsty Native Americans wait to do God’s work. Glass decides to leave revenge in God’s hands, and then decides to play God.
[N.B. The real Hugh Glass soon met Jim Bridger again at a camp, and forgave Bridger, perhaps because of his young age. Glass eventually caught up with Fitzgerald at Fort Atkinson, Nebraska. When they met, Fitzgerald returned Glass’s rifle and no one fought or killed anybody.]
2:23:52 The selfsame Native Americans ride on past Glass because he saved their female from the French. It’s like they’re real Indians and this is karma.
2:26:01 He then probably dies in the snow after seeing his wife’s ghost. So it probably doesn’t matter that the Native Americans spared him. It was, like much of this film, pointless.
[N.B. Hugh Glass died in fact 10 years after the bear attack. He was in the army and killed by Arikara Native Americans.]
Roll credits
2:34:07 Even the credits are over-long. Ten minutes of buck passing.
Tally Ho’
- WTF!?’s: 4 that refuse to die.
- When to Follow: A weekend afternoon when you don’t have to do anything else, but can go out in the evening afterwards and talk about how intellectual you are.
- Where’s This Found: This is a hearty film, in that DiCaprio puts forth some of his most physical acting ever. It’s also a also a hardy film in its epic scope. And it’s a Hardy film, as well, because Tom Hardy turns in a stellar performance. The Revenant reminds me of The Martian as it’s the kind of film you’re glad you watched, but know you’ll never watch again. Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give.
- What To Feedback: Poll time!
[Note: As readers have voted ‘Other’ for films I’d not originally included, I’ve since added The Revenant, Titanic and Shutter Island to the poll. Thank you for sharing your p.o.v.!]
All GIFs used in this review were created with the Imgflip online meme generator
[N.B. I used the very informative Time Magazine article, History vs Hollywood and Wikipedia page as research tools for this review]
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
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