The Revenant

For F*** Magazine

THE REVENANT 

Director : Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck
Genre : Adventure/Thriller
Run Time : 2 hrs 36 mins
Opens : 4 February 2016
Rating : M18 (Sexual Scene and Violence)

The untamed wilderness has never been wilder and more untamed than in this survival epic. It is 1823 in the uncharted Louisiana Purchase and a party of fur trappers led by Andrew Henry (Gleeson) is hunting for pelts. The group is ambushed by the Arikara Native Americans and many of their number are killed. Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a hunter familiar with the terrain of the area, recommends a path through the forest for the survivors to take. John Fitzgerald (Hardy) is antagonistic towards Glass and his half-Pawnee Native American son Hawk (Goodluck). Angry about having to abandon the valuable pelts, Fitzgerald betrays Glass and leaves him for dead after Glass is severely mauled by a bear. Fitzgerald tricks the young trapper Jim Bridger (Poulter), who has volunteered to stay behind and tend to Glass, into going along with his plan. Glass claws his way out of a shallow grave, navigating the harsh landscape in search of shelter and vengeance against Fitzgerald.

            The Revenant is based on Michael Punke’s 2002 historical novel of the same name, which in turn drew on the true story of Hugh Glass. The Revenant will go down in film history has having one of the most arduous shoots ever, with the crew deeming the production process a “living hell”. They had to contend with below-freezing temperatures, director Iñárritu’s preference for shooting the film in chronological order and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s insistence on only using natural light, be it from the sun or a campfire. In addition, the lack of snow in the Canadian locations resulted in the whole crew picking up sticks and relocating to Argentina. The shoot went over schedule and Hardy had to drop out of Suicide Squad because of it. Defending his decisions and saying he “has nothing to hide,” Iñárritu told the Hollywood Reporter “If we ended up in greenscreen with coffee and everybody having a good time, everybody will be happy, but most likely the film would be a piece of s***.”

            So, was all of that worth it? Short answer: yes. The Revenant is not a story with particularly inventive twists and turns, but even though most audiences would have a general idea of how the story will progress even without prior knowledge of Hugh Glass, it’s very easy to get invested in this yarn. Iñárritu reels the audience in and doesn’t let go, one can almost feel the film’s grip tighten. Wide panoramas of mountain ridges and roaring rivers are contrasted with extreme tight close-ups of bloodied and bruised characters gritting their teeth. Lubezki serves ups beauty without a hint of artificial polish, uncompromising, raw and majestic. Much has been made of the brutal scenarios depicted in the film, but Iñárritu uses the violence such that the audience doesn’t get too comfortable in their plush multiplex seats, and he never gleefully revels in the gore the way Tarantino does. The wince-inducing moments are numerous, as impactful as they are bracing.

            DiCaprio has yet to win an Oscar. That’s the meme that has been run deep into the ground. With all that he’s put himself through to play Glass, The Revenant might finally be his shot at that coveted golden statuette. He calls it the “hardest performance of his career”, and it’s easy to see why: the vegetarian actor had to devour a slab of raw bison liver, learn to fire a musket and build a fire and study the Native American languages of Pawnee and Arikara. We’ve seen heroes who cling to bitter determination against all odds before, but DiCaprio does hammer home the extent of Glass’ ordeal.

Hardy is just as good, even stealing the show from DiCaprio on occasion, as Fitzgerald. This reviewer is of the opinion that Hardy is at his best when playing aggressive, villainous characters and his portrayal of the avaricious Fitzgerald is thoroughly authentic. Gleeson is just the right pitch of noble and Poulter looks appropriately out of his element as the greenhorn Bridger. Goodluck and DiCaprio share just enough of a father-son bond, though the relationship isn’t as believable as it should be. Arthur RedCloud delivers a truly moving performance as a good Samaritan Pawnee man named Hikuc who aids Glass.

            In order to compete with the ready availability of films to watch in various formats at home, movie theatres truck out gimmicks such as 3D, IMAX, Dolby Atmos sound and D-Box motion seats, promising “immersion”. While this reviewer is often a sucker for such gimmicks, few cinematic experiences come close to offering the immersion that The Revenant does. The film certainly has its shortcomings: at 156 minutes, it is too long, though not egregiously so. It is also ultimately more gruelling than rewarding to sit through and doesn’t say anything particularly poignant about the dynamic between Native Americans and the frontiersman who came to mine North America for its natural resources. Taken as a harrowing survival odyssey, The Revenant is quite the achievement.

Summary: A primal, riveting tale of nigh-superhuman perseverance, you’ll be rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and against Tom Hardy while taking in the splendour of the untamed wilderness and wincing at the effectively gory moments.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

In the Heart of the Sea

For F*** Magazine

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA

Cast : Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, Michelle Fairley
Genre : Action/Adventure/Drama
Run Time : 121 mins
Opens : 3 December 2015
Rating : PG13 (Some Disturbing Scenes)

Pull up a chair, because director Ron Howard’s got a whale of a tale to tell you lads, a whale of a tale or two. Author Herman Melville (Whishaw) travels to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts to interview innkeeper Thomas Nickerson (Gleeson), in order to research the novel Moby-Dick. At age 14, Nickerson (Holland) was a cabin boy aboard the whaleship Essex, sailing with Captain George Pollard, Jr. (Walker), First Mate Owen Chase (Hemsworth) and Second Mate Matthew Joy (Murphy). It is the year 1820 and whale blubber is a valuable commodity for its use as fuel. While off the South American coast, the Essex is rammed by a bull sperm whale and sinks, stranding its crew at sea. Nickerson recounts the harrowing events to Melville, confronting dark memories of starvation, madness and survival, during which the crew drew lots to determine who would be killed and eaten for the others to live.

            In the Heart of the Sea is based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 non-fiction book of the same name. The film was originally set for release in March this year, but was pushed back to December presumably for awards season consideration. The true story seems like it has all the makings of a gripping film, but while the end result is competently executed, it fails to be truly thrilling or moving. By now, audiences know what to expect from a survival at sea drama – the elements will be braved, there will be desperate situations, the crew will be at each other’s throats, the survivors will have to band together to stay alive and so on. In the Heart of the Sea hopes to offer something different in the form of the whale, but there is very little of the film in which the crew of the Essex actually face off against their Cetecean nemesis.

            This is a film about extremes that often plays it very safe, even with the depiction of cannibalism. There are times when In the Heart of the Sea comes across like it’s trying to emulate a prestigious British costume drama epic and while effort is made to capture the whaleship setting and time period, the film never quite attains the desired level of authenticity. Because of the way the framing device is set up, with the middle-aged Nickerson reluctantly telling Melville about the events he braved in his youth aboard the Essex, there is a significant amount of exposition. It feels like we have to wade through the history to get to the exciting bits, as opposed to being actually invested in these characters and caring about what happens to them.

            The cast take the material very seriously and while this is not a poorly acted film, there isn’t quite enough personality to each of the historical figures. There is conflict between Captain George Pollard, Jr. and First Mate Owen Chase, because Chase was promised the captaincy but Pollard got the position through his family connections. The two men eventually come to an understanding, but given the circumstances, their interaction should be more riveting than this. Hemsworth, reuniting with his Rush director, famously went on a diet of 500 calories a day to portray the starving sailor. Bidding farewell to all that muscle must be like sending a firstborn child off to college. Hemsworth’s Chase is the hero who looks out for his men, a very straight-forward role. Walker is often quite bland opposite him and even though he’s playing the captain, there are moments when this reviewer almost forgot he existed.

            Murphy’s usual magnetism and subtle unpredictability are all but absent from his turn as Second Mate Matthew Joy, and given how the story is told from Nickerson’s point of view, we expected Holland to be given more emotional beats to play. The sequence in which the Essex goes down in flames after it is struck by the enraged whale is excitingly staged, but most of the drama is predictable and the film stops short of being truly immersive. There are also scenes depicting baby whales in the pod, and one can’t help but side with the whales at times. Sure, the whalers are doing their job and we don’t mean to get all Greenpeace, but at the end of the day, this is a movie in which our heroes are killing animals that wouldn’t bother them if they didn’t get all up in their business. This reviewer never really felt like he was stranded alongside the crew of the Essex and the detachedness is what ultimately lets In the Heart of the Sea down.

Summary: What should be an epic adventure is mostly dull and doesn’t offer anything drastically different from other survival at sea films.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

All Is Lost

For F*** Magazine

ALL IS LOST

Director: J.C. Chandor
Cast:  Robert Redford
Genre: Drama, Adventure
Run Time: 106 mins
Opens: 20 February 2014
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language)

At some risk of reprisal, allow us to say this: move aside Chuck Norris, Robert Redford is here to claim the title of all-American badass aged over-70. All Is Lost isn’t a documentary about obsessive fans of the J. J. Abrams television series with the not-quite-so-satisfying ending – it’s a tale of man against the elements, and the elements are out of luck because that man is the Sundance Kid himself.

Our Man (Redford, and otherwise unnamed) is on the sailboat Virginia Jean, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. All is calm and leisurely, until the first of his problems: an errant shipping container strikes his boat, creating a hole in the side of it. He goes to work patching up the breached hull and crafting a makeshift handle for the bilge pump to get rid of the water that has leaked into the boat. He also discovers his navigational and communication equipment has been damaged. Things get worse for Our Man, as they must, and he finds himself caught in the midst of a violent storm, his boat taking on more damage and his supplies running low as he fights for survival and hopes to get rescued.



All Is Lost is the second feature film from writer-director J.C. Chandor, who goes from depicting the Wall Street bailout in Margin Call (nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) to showcasing Robert Redford bailing water out of a leaky boat. All is Lost has garnered attention for its unconventional, experimental aspects: it truly is a one man show, with Redford the only actor who appears on screen. The film is also largely dialogue-free, Alex Ebert’s Golden Globe-winning score doing most of the talking. It almost brings to mind the first 20 minutes of, WALL-E, except with less wonderment and whimsy.

Director of photography Frank G. Demarco and underwater cinematographer Peter Zuccarini deliver a visually beautiful film, the harsh churning of the ocean contrasted with serene visions of schools of fish beneath a life raft as seen from below. The film has a tendency to come across like one of those survival skills TV shows like Bear Grylls’ Worst Case Scenario. A problem comes up, Our Man tries to fix it. Another problem comes up, Our Man tries to fix it. Most of the time, Our Man improves the situation but sometimes, he makes ill-advised decisions from the fatigue.

Sailing enthusiasts have ripped into the movie the same way most astronauts probably scoffed at Gravity, pointing out myriad factual inaccuracies which probably won’t bother you unless you’re an expert at this stuff. Apparently, Our Man would have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), a locator device that is standard equipment for open-water sailing.

But then again, practically every movie about anything can be picked apart by the cognoscenti and the main draw here is Robert Redford’s much-praised performance. We can safely say that he’s the best actor in the film…apart from maybe that one shark. Every actor longs to hold court as the lone figure on screen for a whole movie but not every actor can. Redford proves himself more than capable as the wizened, weary mariner, the old man and the sea, the Pi without a Richard Parker for company. The nuances in his facial expressions, masterfully conveying frustration, anger, desperation, joy, exhaustion, resignation and most of all an underlying, unexplained sadness are engaging. He also gets more battered than a double serving of fish and chips, and you’ve got to feel something seeing the living legend take quite the beating from Mother Nature. Redford ensures we want to see Our Man succeed and make it out of the ordeal in one piece.

All Is Lost certainly deserves credit for being markedly different than most things in the cinema but there’s a risk in that. The film has a running time of 106 minutes which, compared to the likes of the Lord of the Rings films and the recent Wolf of Wall Street isn’t all that long but boy, this sure is a drag. We reckon this might have worked better as a forty minute-long short film instead of a feature and that it might well have had a chance at the best live action short Oscar were that the case. All Is Lost isn’t particularly entertaining, nor is it solemnly impactful in a Schindler’s List kind of way, it sort of floats in limbo. However, it’s worth a watch to see Redford still bringing it at 77. Who needs all those Expendables, right?

SUMMARY: “I’ll never let go, Bob!”

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Hours

For F*** Magazine

HOURS

Director: Eric Heisserer
Cast:   Paul Walker, Genesis Rodriguez, Nick Gomez, Judd Lormand, Michelle Torres, Kerry Cahill, Shane Jacobsen
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Run Time: 97 mins
Opens: 9 January 2014
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)

It’s an often tragic fact of life that Mother Nature isn’t to be trifled with. Catastrophic disasters regularly rear their heads, wreaking unfathomable damage. Southeast Asia has just emerged from Typhoon Haiyan, which caused immense devastation in the Philippines in particular. In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck Eastern North America; the most significant number of deaths occurring in New Orleans, Louisiana. The storm serves as the backdrop for writer/director Eric Heisserer’s survival thriller Hours.

Nolan Hayes (Walker) nervously waits in the hospital as his wife Abigail (Rodriguez) gives birth to their baby daughter, born five weeks premature. What should have been a joyous day turns into an ordeal for the new father as Hurricane Katrina sweeps into New Orleans, levee failures resulting in the flooding of the city. The power in the hospital cuts out and as it is evacuated, Nolan and the infant are left alone in the building. The only source of power for the neo-natal incubator needed to keep the baby alive? A malfunctioning generator which Nolan has to crank by hand every few minutes, desperately sustaining a fragile life.



Hours is Heisserer’s directorial debut, the screenwriter having co-written horror films A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and Final Destination 5. He has come up with a high-concept premise for an intimate one-man-against-the-odds story, combining elements of a ticking clock thriller with the “triumph of the human spirit” aspect of a survival film. Also at play is the “Papa Wolf” trope, that a man would do anything for the safety of his daughter. It’s almost like Taken, except that the daughter is hours old and that it’s Hurricane Katrina as the threat in place of a nefarious human trafficking ring. The thing is, the daughter can’t be fully developed as a character here since, well, she’s a new-born, leaving the character of the father to do all the dramatic heavy lifting.

Unfortunately, Heisserer is not entirely sure how to develop the premise and there are creaks evident in the story’s structure. Nolan’s fight to save his baby girl is interspersed with flashbacks that attempt to flesh out the relationship he shared with his wife before this incident, but they are heavily expository. The film does become something of a grind, falling into a pattern of “discover obstacle, overcome obstacle, go back to crank the generator, talk to the baby and deliver exposition”. We are also brought up to speed with real news footage spliced somewhat clumsily into the film. However, the last act of the film does get interesting and there is just enough for audiences to get invested in.

Hours is squarely Paul Walker’s film to carry, the late actor spending most of its running time as the only person on screen (apart from the infant). It is especially sobering to see the recently-deceased Walker in a film with themes of mortality and survival and he acquits himself relatively well. He is charming and watchable but sufficiently intense and exhausted when the film calls for it. Unfortunately, even though this is one of his best performances, one can’t help but feel that an actor of greater stature would fit the part better. Carrying a movie this emotionally and physically draining is no mean feat and Walker does visibly struggle at times.

Director of photography Jaron Presant lenses the film beautifully, emphasizing the eeriness of the deserted hospital with lots of low angles down long corridors and slow push-ins, contrasted with the warm lighting of the incubator room. Fans of Eight Below will be delighted at the introduction of a loveable German Shepherd late in the film, but beyond the dog, Nolan doesn’t get to interact with many other characters and Walker has to power through the occasionally-unwieldy script all by his lonesome. While Hours doesn’t quite gel, the simplicity of its narrative enhances the story’s emotional impact and Paul Walker does give it his all.

SUMMARY: Hours doesn’t fully deliver on a promising concept but has its moments of heartfelt earnestness and is a decent film to remember Paul Walker by.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong