Twentieth Century Fox2016 might just be the year that Leonardo DiCaprio finally wins an Oscar—at least, that's what a lot of critics are saying.
The 41-year-old actor is getting rave reviews for his raw, intense performance in The Revenant. DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a fur trader who is left for dead by his fellow frontiersman after he's savagely mauled by a bear. The film, set in the 1820s, also features Will Poulter and Tom Hardy, but most critics are championing DiCaprio's extremely physical performance. As Robbie Collin writes for the U.K.'s Telegraph, "If this raw revenue western doesn't win Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar, nothing will."
Forbes' Mark Hughes calls The Revenant "a mesmerizing, brilliant, film," calling it, "a timeless epic of the human will to both overcome and surrender, and to be a force for nature's own will."
Hughes notes that "...despite a few other award groups failing to offer the film the degree of recognition it deserves," he "is confident the Oscars will not make that mistake" and snub DiCaprio.
But The A.V. Club's A.A. Dowd argues that it's Hardy, who plays DiCaprio's foe in The Revenant, who delivers "the film's true standout performance."
As Dowd notes, "Hardy is the most fascinatingly human character on screen—a rationalizing scoundrel whose selfish behavior lends him more dimension than the impossibly driven superman on his tail."
For the most part, however, it all comes back to DiCaprio. As Ann Horaday writes for The Washington Post, the leading man "grunts, wheezes, crawls and brawls his way through an Oscar-caliber performance in a film designed as a monument to the greed, venality and Darwinian aggression through which this country was forged."
So, yeah, this isn't exactly a feel-good movie, although DiCaprio's fight for survival seems to strike an inspirational note with these critics. In any case, The Revenant hits theaters nationwide on Friday.