REVIEW: The Revenant

The Revenant threatens to be one of those films where everything surrounding it is a bit more interesting than the film itself. Everyone wanted to make it clear that it was shot in the REAL Alaskan wilderness, that Leonardo DiCaprio ate a REAL buffalo liver, that it was only shot in the REAL one hour of daylight the crew had each day (they presumably spent the rest of their time playing Scrabble and catching hypothermia). It's already storming awards season, DiCaprio's name being engraved in a gold statuette as we speak, and it's been obsessively written about - from Ray Mears fact-checking the film's narrative, to Carole Cadwalladr's (stupid) argument that it's just meaningless "pain porn", to the surfacing of a photo of stunt double Glenn Ennis, looking like a particularly vicious Smurf in his CGI-friendly bear suit. Oh, and then there was that bizarre rumour about a non-consensual relationship between DiCaprio and his animal adversary, with the studio having to clarify that their star - six-time Oscar nominee and bankable star of one of the biggest blockbusters of all time - was not, in fact, raped by a bear.

Why bother seeing the film itself, right? Well, you'd be doing yourself a disservice, because The Revenant - while hardly revelatory - is a solidly visceral and atmospheric revenge thriller, one that paints the formation of America as a relentlessly brutal affair that left few unscarred. The year is 1823, and the hero is Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a trapper hunting for pelts in the unsettled Louisiana wilderness. After his party narrowly escape a Native American ambush, Glass, walking alone through the forest, comes across two bear cubs. He barely hears the twigs breaking behind him before boom, he's being raped mauled by a bear. Through sheer force of will he manages to kill the animal by stabbing it in the neck; his party, after stitching up his wounds, try to carry him home, but fail. Three are left in charge of looking after him: John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), and Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), Glass' Native American son. Fitzgerald emerges as a villain - he kills Hawk, then tricks Bridger into abandoning Glass, in order to claim money from the deed without having to, you know, do his job.

A perfectly plan, were Glass not such a resilient son-of-a-bitch. He proceeds to drag himself through blood, shit, and snow to get his revenge on Fitzgerald. On the way, he cauterises a wound with gunpowder; he falls down a waterfall; he rides his horse off a cliff, then hollows out the animal and climbs inside for a night's sleep. It's easy to see why DiCaprio is being honoured. Whenever he suffers in this film, you can sort of see a big "acting" lightbulb flash on-and-off, just to wake up any Academy members who might have drifted off. Though this isn't to undermine his performance; DiCaprio disappears into the role, a scraggly beard and messy locks masking his naturally boyish looks, and he expresses little by way of dialogue, instead favouring spittle flecks and grunts.

While the sequences of survival in the snow can get a bit monotonous (it's hard to convey "cold" in a film, especially when you're watching it while wrapped in a blanket) there are some action sequences that, in the synthesis between Emmanuel Lubezki's photography and Alejandro Iñárritu's direction, really are spectacular. The aforementioned bear raping mauling is a highlight, with the continuous long-take and the crunchy sound effects making every minute of the encounter last a lifetime. And the opening sequence, where Native Americans drive the trappers out of their beach encampment, feels like something directly out of Blood Meridian (which I imagine Iñárritu was going for).

But when you make this comparison, you realise where the film falls down. Once you strip away the style, the excitement, the DiCaprio, you realise you have what is, in essence, an overlong revisionist Western. The plot is really simple - a guy goes out to get revenge on the guy who killed his son - and it's got a bunch of really pretentious tendencies; namely, a recurring vision of Glass' dead wife, whose two lines of dialogue make her the best (and only) female role in the film. And the depiction of Native Americans is a bit questionable, too. They're all shown as being quite friendly, really, their leader's noble desire to find his kidnapped daughter standing in stark contrast to the Americans' desire for money; you can't help but think that, back then, it was a bit more complicated than that. One cringeworthy moment comes when DiCaprio meets a Native American hunting for buffalo, and they bond over memories of their families, the music swelling up like something out of a Robert Zemeckis film. In Blood Meridian, everyone descended to an equally bloodthirsty level, but in The Revenant, the view of human nature is, ultimately, quite rosy.

Again, it's very well-made, and worth seeing just for the sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio and a bear makes sweet, sweet love beat the shit out of each other. But unfortunately, it falls short of greatness.

★★★½

REVIEW: The Big Short

Imagine if Adam McKay, the director of Anchorman and Step Brothers, tried to make Margin Call.

★★

REVIEW: The Hateful Eight

Me and Quentin Tarantino have had a tricky relationship, see. I want to like his stuff. I really do. I remember how good those first two were, and if he'd spent the next part of career trying to re-capture that magic, I might have been more sympathetic. But no: Quentin decided to disappear up his own arse, and make films that interested him and him alone. Hey, how cool are samurai movies, huh? Aren't grimy explotation movies, like, awesome? What if I made a movie where a bunch of dudes killed Hitler? Wouldn't that be totally out there? The problem is, Quentin Tarantino has proved to be such an obnoxious bellend in person that his worst films are like being stuck in a room with him for two hours, as he splutters about his latest theory that Batman is a metaphor for the industrial revolution or something. He forgot there were other people listening, and became obsessed with the sound of his own voice.

I'm not saying that's all changed. But in 2012, he made Django Unchained. As a film, it was a little bloated (read: too fucking long) and had a few other, recurring problems (enough with the cameos), but it was mostly entertaining, filled with great performances, and said some interesting things about slave narratives. In the same vein, The Hateful Eight - while far from a masterpiece - is the first film of his in a long time that I'd say, without any kind of qualifying statement, I liked.

Actually, that's not true. There's a few things wrong with it. It is self-indulgent - the entire cinema cringed in unison when "The 8th Film from Quentin Tarantino" came up - and it's far too long. But I was surprised to admit that what I thought would annoy me ended up doing the exact opposite. Both an overture and an intermission could be unnecessary, but Tarantino makes full use of them to draw you into his atmospheric and strangely mature story. The former, in particular, sets the mood brilliantly, making full use of Ennio Morricone's "ghetto" score to amp up the dread. We're in a desolate Wyoming, somewhere between The Searchers and The Thing, where DEATH might as well be spelled out in 50-foot-high letters - there's one great shot of a stone statue of Jesus Christ, atop a crucifix, in a spasm of pain, and the camera stays there for a hauntingly long period of time.

The film follows John "Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell), who's captured notorious outlaw Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and is determined to collect her $10,000 bounty. Standing in his way are six others - Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a former Union soldier and suspected war criminal; Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a somewhat demented sheriff-to-be; Bob (Demián Bichir), not characterised much beyond being Mexican; Oswald Mobray (Tim Roth), a posh British hangman; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a shifty-looking cowboy; and Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), a cranky ex-Confederate general - all of whom form a group of eight not-particularly-pleasant-people (gosh, I wish there was a better way to say that). They're all forced to hole up together in a bar when a blizzard comes along, and when it becomes clear that someone's working to free Daisy from the Hangman's clutches, the entire thing turns into an Agatha Christie story - albeit one with way more exploding heads, obvs.

Considering this film goes on for three hours - THREE HOURS - you'd expect the pace to sag. But actually, it all feels quite well-managed. Tarantino creates some actual characters this time to befit his incredible cast, and they build up a crackling rhythm between them as the film gets going. Jennifer Jason Leigh is very impressive as the film's sole female element, giving a powerful, empathetic presence to someone having to contend with a room full of gravely-voiced boys; and Samuel L. Jackson is on ripe, charismatic form as Warren, the kind of role that made him famous in the first place. But it's Walton Goggins who makes the strangest, funniest, strongest impression as Mannix - hardly surprising, considering he was quietly brilliant on Justified for about six years, so here's hoping he'll become the film's breakout star.

What works is that none of the characters are idealised, they're all equally horrible, all representing some nasty facet of 18th Century (or maybe, if you're feeling generous, 21st Century) society. And dare I say that this film actually says something rather interesting in its violence? While the majority of the story is focused on trying to work out who's-doing-what-and-why, in sensational and dialogue-heavy fashion, there's a rich vein of absurdity hanging over the story, as well as some angry political provocations. We're in the shadow of the Civil War, the memory of its horrors giving us a dissonant moral vacuum where Hate, however irrational, prevails. And for what? Is there even a reason for all this to be happening? There's a constant reappearance of a letter from Abraham Lincoln, which is later revealed to be forged. It's like the film in microcosm - lies to disguise, to trick, to kill, all for nothing. Sure, it's no Fargo, no Wild Bunch. But it's the best film Tarantino has made in years. So there.

★★★★

If John Lewis made The Snowman...

...it would be an emotionally manipulative pile of shit like this.

Seriously, I'd be pretty fucked off if someone locked me in a fridge for 10 years.

Eight things we learned from the Golden Globes

1. Saying offensive things in a random order still isn't that funny

2. Celebrities are at their best when they're on drugs

3. Quentin Tarantino is still the whitest cringebag ever

4. People think Sly Stallone is a better actor than two-time Olivier Award winner Mark Rylance

5. I don't know who most of these people are

6. Leonardo DiCaprio still looks like someone inflated a baby

7. Nothing I do in my life will ever make Denzel Washington this proud

8. Sweet JESUS I'd forgotten how BORING awards shows are

If this is supposed to be "the fun one" then how am I going to make it through the BAFTAs?

REVIEW: Joy

Fresh from making jokes about mental illness and reminding us that THE 70s EXISTED AND PEOPLE HAD BIG HAIR AND STUFF in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle respectively, David O'Russell is back at it again with a sort-of-biopic based on the woman who invented the Miracle Mop. Somehow, it's one of his worst films yet - no easy feat - a mess of tonal inconsistencies, poor character development, and a misunderstanding of the fact that making an innocent woman suffer isn't a suitable shortcut for compelling drama (see also: Lars von Trier).

It's filled with this inappropriately wacky family drama - with people like Robert De Niro and Isabella Rossellini forgetting to convince us that their characters are real people - that was irritating back when it was done competently in I Heart Huckabees, but here suffers from acting in almost complete opposition to, um, what the film is apparently supposed to be about - a woman inventing a mop. It's like O'Russell got drunk and watched the first 30 minutes of The Royal Tenenbaums before passing out. The only bit which works is a more traditional sequence where the film's titular character Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) tries to sell a mop on QVC, and that only lasts about three minutes. In short: not enough mop-based action.

But all of this pales in comparison to the films biggest flaw, which involves the casting of Joy Mangano herself. Yes, I'm afraid our beloved J-Law just doesn't belong in this film, and isn't nearly as wonderful as everyone's saying she is. Let's try and break it down...

Here is a picture of Joy Mangano at around the time she first became popular.

Here is a picture of Jennifer Lawrence being charming on the Graham Norton show.

It's not a problem that they don't look like each other. It is a problem that Lawrence is having to play someone like Joy Mangano in the first place. Mangano was born in 1956, and first sold mops on QVC in 1992, making her about 36 years old. Jennifer Lawrence was born in 1990, and is 25 years old, even though she still looks about 19. "Now Sam," I hear you cry, "isn't that a bit trivial? David O'Russell has already said it's a mostly fictional biopic, with many characters and events plucked out of thin air. Surely as long as Lawrence captures Mangano's spirit, there's no real problem with that?"

Yes, that might be true. But when we're having to stomach the fact that Lawrence's character is divorced, with two kids, with apparently "no life" ahead of her after skipping college, we run into a bit of a problem, especially when she has to depict Joy in the later stages of her life, as a mid-40s matriarch with a successful business empire. Lawrence can be an unflinching Ozark Mountain girl, Lawrence can be a brave teenage resistance fighter, Lawrence can even get away with being a bipolar free spirit. But Lawrence is the furthest you can get from a matriarch. She's 25! She probably still eats her own bogies.

It sounds petty, but it's what sinks the entire ship. You never believe Joy is a real person. You never believe her family are real people. You never believe watching the film was really worth your time.

★★