Versatile actor Leonardo DiCaprio is due to show us his wild side in new movie ‘The Revenant’ that is set in the 1820’s and sees him play a fur trapper alongside Tom Hardy.
Leo’s character is frontiersman, Hugh Glass, who sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. The director is Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu whose last film ‘Birdman’ was critically acclaimed.
The trailer has a dark tone and shows a gruesome scene of a bear attacking DiCaprio’s character, who is betrayed and buried alive by his colleagues who think he is dead.
“We did what we had to do. He is buried right,” snarls Tom Hardy’s character. A later scene shows a bearded DiCaprio crawl from said grave and begin his quest for vengeance. “I ain’t afraid to die. I done it already,” he states.
The film is inspired by true events and also stars Domhnaill Gleeson and Will Poulter. There has been much talk about how difficult the shoot was and about budgets being overstretched.
The film to my mind immediately brings comparisons to classic movie ‘The Mountain Men’ from 1980 starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith, who play a pair of grizzled frontiersmen who fight Indians as they try and trap elusive beavers. The image of trappers in a desolate snowy landscape fending off Indians looks much the same in The Revenant. Muskets are fired and the trappers flee into a freezing river in the trailer. It promises some breath-taking scenery also.
Twentieth Century Fox stated that, “It is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. In an expedition of the uncharted American wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In a quest to survive, Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption.”
Tom Hardy plays the part of the villain, perhaps channeling some of the Mad Max darkness. He looks suitably menacing in the role.
In an interview for Yahoo Movies, DiCaprio spoke about his role and said, “It’s epic poetry, an existential journey through nature, and this man finding a will to live against all odds. I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses.”
The screenplay is based on Michael Punke’s 2002 novel. It will hit cinemas in January 2016.