Combining what some have called his propensity for “arthouse miserablism” in films like Babel or Biutiful with a newfound fetish for conspicuous formal audacity (see Birdman’s much-discussed faux single take), Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant is a simultaneously uneven and thrilling combination of grisly violence, immense portent, and for the most part immaculate technical craft. Primarily the truly harrowing ordeal of a frontier scout (Leonardo DiCaprio) left for dead by a murderous…
