Brutal yet beautiful Inarritu revenge thriller

NO one makes movies quite like Alejandro G Inarritu, a director with the ability, vision and strength of will to generate a genuine sense of being right there, bringing viewers not only ringside but into the ring itself - without pulling any punches. He did it last year with Birdman, taking us backstage at a Broadway theatre and he's done it again with The Revenant, an epic tale of survival against incredible odds in the wintry wilds of the Old West.

By the end of the film (Inarritu's sixth), which is set in the 1820s and was inspired in part by a real-life frontiersman and fur trapper named Hugh Glass, we will be emotionally drained, visually dazzled and more than a little damaged by the sheer intensity and realness of what we have just witnessed.

We are alongside the bushy-bearded Glass as he aims his musket at a magnificent stag, battles a tribe of hostile Indians and endures a horrifying bear attack in rapid succession, and then spends the rest of the two-and-a-half-hour film literally crawling through snow-covered terrain in a life-or-death effort to reach safety.