David Robbins
© 2016

     If you’re a Leonardo DiCaprio fan, going to see THE REVENANT is a no-brainer. If you’re a Tom Hardy fan, the same. And both have a lot of fans. The movie is supposedly a retelling of an excruciating ordeal undergone by mountain man Hugh Glass. With the stress on ‘supposedly’. This is Hollywood, after all. And they have never yet come across a real-life incident they believed they couldn’t ‘improve’.

     First, ‘Just the facts, ma’am?’, as Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet. Hugh Glass, who was part of a fur-trapping expedition, was attacked by a grizzly and severely mauled. Believing Glass wouldn’t live, the rest of the men moved on, leaving a trapper named Fitzgerald and another who might have been Jim Bridger (there is debate over that) to stay with him until he died. They didn’t. They took Glass’s rifle and other effects, and left, later saying they had to because hostiles were closing in.

     Glass revived. Through sheer iron resolve, he wrapped himself in the hide of the bear they’d slain, and set out for the nearest fort, which was 200 miles away. It’s claimed that eventually he caught up with Jim Bridger and forgave him because Bridger was so young. He apparently caught up to Fitzgerald, too, but didn’t kill him, either. He did get his rifle back, and went off into the wilderness again, only to be slain by hostiles a few years later.
[Never get between a mother bear and her cubs. The consequences won't be pretty.]
 
     Which brings us to THE REVENANT. (SPOILER ALERT! I’m about to mention a few aspects you might not want to know about in advance! Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want any of its elements spoiled!)

     The movie is beautifully filmed. DiCaprio and Hardy, among others, give riveting performances. As it is intended to, it tugs at the heartstrings. There is a measure of balance in that not all the whites are ‘bad’ and not all the Native Americans are ‘bloodthirsty savages’.
[Tom Hardy gives whole new meaning to being 'totally despicable'.]

     As for the liberties the film takes with the facts, we did mention this was Hollywood, right? To list them all would take an entire page. So here are just a few of the major ‘make-believe’s’: Glass didn’t have his son with him. There were no vile French trappers involved. Nor an abducted Arikara woman. Fitzgerald didn’t murder the leader of the expedition. And as previously mentioned, Glass and Fitzgerald didn’t have a great climactic fight.
[Lavishly filmed, some of the scenery is spectacular.]

     You might be thinking, ‘Who cares? This isn’t a documentary.’ And you know what, you’re right. On its own merits, THE REVENANT is an outstanding movie. You will be thoroughly entertained.

     I certainly was. As one point, DiCaprio takes a few bites out of a raw bison liver. (In case you are unaware, DiCaprio is reportedly a vegan.) I might have been the only one in the audience who laughed. The Tom Hardy character must have rubbed off on me, because I was thinking, 'Maybe now he’ll man up and eat a hot dog now and then.'

     Yes, if you are an enraged vegan, feel free to throw broccoli.

 [Raw bison liver. Yummy. Chomp down and dig in. Or you can toss it on the barbie.]