Alejandro G. Iñárritu directs Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy and Will Poulter in this sublime Western about a frontiersman left for dead, who climbs out of his grave and crawls across country in pursuit of his transgressors. 

A film of arduous moments that indelibly mark you. The lengthily maintained one shot horror of the first native attack totemically sets the tone for a series of haunting encounters filled with wounding violence, desperate self preservation and the melancholy of humanity pushed to its limits. Leo deservedly won the Oscar with this committed but often silent central showcase, yet both the ever excellent Hardy and notably Poulter more than hold their own against his admirable work. Whether you’d want to regularly brave The Revenant’s often artier pretensions and constantly gruelling trials remain to be seen but I felt myself warm to it all just a little bit more on this second small screen viewing. And it had already impressed me mightily.

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