The Bikeriders

 

Director Jeff Nichols

Nichols with Mike Faist

Nichols with Jodie Comer and Austin Butler

Nichols with Tom Hardy

Danny Lyons self-portrait

THE BIKERIDERS               B                                                                                                      USA  (116 mi)  2023  ‘Scope  d: Jeff Nichols

You can give everything you got to a thing and it’s still just gonna do what it’s gonna do.          —Johnny (Tom Hardy)

The maker of Shotgun Stories (2007), Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012), Joe (2013), Midnight Special (2016), and Loving (2016) is back after an eight-year hiatus from feature films.  He spent three years working on ALIEN NATION, a big-budget sci-fi remake for Fox, but it fell apart following the Disney acquisition.  Initially picked to write and direct A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (2024), part of a blockbuster sci-fi extraterrestrial series, but due to creative differences, as it was never going to be his vision, he unexpectedly left the project to make this film, which couldn’t be more radically different, though in keeping with his unpretentious films about a gradually disappearing America, taking us back to the motorcycle outsider subculture in the 1960’s, which began with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing a 5-page article in The Nation magazine entitled The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders, May 17, 1965, which opens in stunning fashion:

Last Labor Day weekend newspapers all over California gave front-page reports of a heinous gang rape in the moonlit sand dunes near the town of Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula.  Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were allegedly taken from their dates by a gang of filthy, frenzied, boozed-up motorcycle hoodlums called “Hell’s Angels,” and dragged off to be “repeatedly assaulted.”

A deputy sheriff, summoned by one of the erstwhile dates, said he “arrived at the beach and saw a huge bonfire surrounded by cyclists of both sexes.  Then the two sobbing, near-hysterical girls staggered out of the darkness, begging for help.  One was completely nude and the other had on only a torn sweater.”

Thompson spent the next year preparing for a new book while living with and embedded into the Hell’s Angels as one of their own, in particular the San Francisco and Oakland chapters with their president Ralph ‘Sonny’ Barger, earning their trust and unique comradery, allowing Thompson to get close to the gang in a way others had not been able, spending his time traveling through California by motorcycle, describing the contrast between the general lawlessness of the club and the exaggerated fear that very lawlessness engenders in society.  Widely lauded for its up-close and uncompromising look at the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club during a time when the gang was highly feared and accused of numerous criminal activities, Thompson described them as “the one percent who don’t fit and don’t care” before he was himself collectively stomped by the Angels and forced out in a violent reaction to his views against spousal abuse, an incident that is included in the book published in 1967 that launched his career as a writer, [PDF] Hell’s Angels, A Strange and Terrible Saga (186 pages).  This begs the question, how do you tame a wild beast?  Thompson’s embellished treatment of gang-rape and its mix of realism and complete absence of restraint, like some kind of exotic cult ritual, has drawn plenty of controversy over the years, where he was accused of condoning rape.  Mirroring this experience was that of photojournalist Danny Lyon, a graduate of the University of Chicago (a classmate of Bernie Sanders) who began his career in the early 1960’s documenting the Civil Rights movement for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.  A few years earlier in 1957, Jack Kerouac’s culturally defining book On the Road chronicled a group of disillusioned young outsiders wandering the country and searching for answers, embracing art and poetry over conformity and consumerism.  Like many young men, Lyon, who was 15 when On the Road came out, was inspired by the book, so in the summer of 1962, following a semester at the University of Chicago, he asked friends to drop him off along Route 66, the same road Kerouac traveled, where he could follow his own path, hitchhiking to Cairo, Illinois where he saw future congressman John Lewis speak, photographing what he saw.  In 1963 Lyon returned to Chicago and rode with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, taking pictures of and recording interviews with the members of a notorious motorcycle gang, effectively becoming their in-house chronicler, knowing the best way to get good pictures was to get involved.  Thompson even warned Lyon to be wary of the unpredictable behavior of biker outlaws, as they can turn on you in a second, but the legitimate Midwest motorcycle clubs at that time were radically different than the outlaws of Sonny Barger’s Hell’s Angels on the West coast.  After four years with the Outlaws (becoming disenchanted with their newfound interest in criminality), Lyon emerged with what has become one of the defining photobooks of the 1960’s, The Bikeriders, originally published in 1968 in paperback with fewer than 100 pages for just $2.95, an unapologetically romantic but edgy book of photographs, where the text consists of interviews with the subjects, yet the importance of this book, and its many reprints with color photos added, is hard to overstate, representing a significant step in 1960’s American photography, a predecessor to Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, while also providing a portrait of the people in this marginalized subculture that was jarringly honest, which helped sear motorcycle counterculture into the American psyche, and was a direct inspiration not only for this film, but also Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969).  While that film spoke about a 60’s counterculture, this is more of a counter-world to that counterculture, featuring undereducated, mostly all-white outcasts who don’t really fit anywhere else, yet each of the members supports each other, respects the rules and hierarchy of power, and they become, in a weird way, a family.  Going against the grain, this is not exactly an action movie, instead it’s more of an existential angst exposé of a fringe group’s twisted take on the American Dream.  This is obviously an extremely personal project for Nichols, having an emotional connection to the book, which represents an end of an era, like a nostalgic glimpse into a golden age of motorcycles, once viewed as a sign of American independence, and bikers as modern day cowboys, with guys sticking a middle finger to the conventions of society, but the open road of Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) has simply turned less accessible and more unpredictably violent, where it’s difficult to make sense of all the unhinged shootings of today, as that once accepted moral code has been violated by perverted expressions of hatred and rage.   

American motorcycle clubs were fueled by this outlaw spirit, stretching back to the end of WWII when returning veterans were searching for something resembling the unique male bonding experience along with the dangerous risk-taking of the war, settling upon riding motorcycles together, positioning themselves outside the mainstream, showing a defiance and blatant disregard for the rules of society (no helmets, for instance), given a fatalistic live-fast, die-young fervor.  Is there a better metaphor for freedom in America than the open road?  Nichols has a way with films exploring toxic masculinity, from the tortured half-brothers relationship of his first film Shotgun Stories (2007) to this search for identity through the shared camaraderie in a 1960’s motorcycle club called the Vandals, a rag-tag group of blue collar misfits based out of Elmwood Park, a small suburb just outside of Chicago, who share a free-spirited passion for the open road and getting wasted, as they are simply a group of guys who like to ride their bikes, drink beer, chain-smoke, and have a good time.  In this sea of inarticulate masculinity we strangely find a woman at the center, Kathy (British actress Jodie Comer, based on Kathy Bauer in real life), who narrates her story on a readily available recording device held by Danny (Mike Faist).  Winning a Tony for her one-woman Broadway show, Prima Facie, Comer’s thick Chicago nasal accent sets the stage (completely in sync with the original interview tapes on Lyon’s website Bleak Beauty), reflecting the sounds from the city’s huge immigrant Irish, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Italian, and Ukrainian communities, accents that completely disappear over time.  Led by their founder Johnny (Tom Hardy), a throwback to Marlon Brando from László Benedek’s THE WILD ONE (1953), actually seen watching the movie, getting his idea to form a motorcycle club right then and there, accompanied by Cockroach (Emory Cohen), whose claim to fame is eating bugs, West coast bike mechanic transplant Cal (Boyd Holbrook), the quirky pair of Corky (Karl Glusman) and Wahoo (Beau Knapp), and the moody, perpetually drunk, Latvian odd man out Zipco (Michael Shannon), whose wicked monologue about being rejected by the Army is hilarious, the epitome of what it means to be “undesirable,” yet his right hand man, with a role that resembles a Godfather consigliere, is Brucie (Damon Herriman), who utters the magic words, “Everyone wants to be part of somethin’.  I mean that’s what it really is.  These guys don’t belong nowhere else, so they belong together, you know.”  But none of them hold any interest to Kathy, who’s unimpressed by their foul language, leather and jean jackets everywhere, smelly undershirts smeared with engine oil, and is about to walk out on one of their weird social gatherings until she spots Benny (Austin Butler, who played Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS), The Bikeriders Movie Clip - Shootin the Breeze (2024) YouTube (2:17), a brooding loner who represents the rebellious pulse of the members, as his aloof “I don’t give a fuck” attitude represents the essence of their unbridled freedom, famous for his fearlessness, displaying a calm outer demeanor with an explosive interior, where he has an irresistible impulse to jump into a fight. Much to her surprise, she starts hanging out with him, beautifully captured by their first ride together, which memorably begins with the two of them hurtling over a bridge alone before the rest of the Vandals surge into view behind them and they are engulfed by the roar of the pack, getting swept up in the moment, suddenly riding in perfect formation, where the sheer thrill of it all is exhilarating.  “I’ve had nothing but trouble since I met Benny.  It can’t be love — it must be stupidity,” she chirps.  “Five weeks later, I married him.”  While fictionalized, told largely through interviews and flashbacks from 1959 to 1973, Jeff Nichols’ film remains true to Lyon’s vision, using the same names from the book, exploring self-imposed outsiderdom and tortured masculinity in much the same way, never losing sight of the more marginal characters, but the questionable moral ethics and criminal behavior of an outlaw gang is subverted by an extremely clever use of humor, where the eruption of extreme violence is exaggerated, shot in freeze-frame or slow motion, creating an absurdly comic situation, where that softer touch offsets what we’ve come to understand about the ultraviolence of these disenfranchised men.  Most of the time they’re sitting around in a bar doing next to nothing, just talking and hanging out, minding their own business, while 60’s jukebox music blares in the background (Here Are All the Songs In ‘The Bikeriders’), where some of the choices are positively inspired.  Although shot in color rather than the black-and-white of Lyon’s photographs, there’s a grainy quality to Adam Stone’s 35mm ‘Scope cinematography that lends itself to the original look, yet adds additional textures.        

Inspired by pop culture mythology, while also bearing some similarity with the underground aesthetic of Kathryn Bigelow’s THE LOVELESS (1981), this is an evocation of a lifestyle, capturing the right look and feel, where it’s all about the atmosphere and period detail, as some of these guys have jobs and families, so it might be surprising to think they’re all just playing roles, because at some point in the late 60’s bikers (and other counterculture wannabe’s) started to become mirror images of themselves, no longer the real thing.  Like a photo montage of how they imagine their lives could be, this film evokes a certain charm and even innocence, as none of them are really bad guys, where speeding or running through red lights is the extent of their criminal behavior, The Bikeriders - Official 'Police Chase Clean' Clip (2024 ... YouTube (46 seconds).  Jumping between moments and characters, often stopping in the middle of the action only to return later, dramatic tension is built with expansion of their membership, as new faces from a new generation are more reckless and violently unpredictable, adding a criminal element with a steady escalation of violence, where they dilute the interest from the heart of the group, growing farther and farther from that center core, becoming, essentially, unmanageable. This places an extra burden on Johnny’s rigid view of authority, as it exudes an individualistic Wild West mentality, where there’s always someone to challenge the fastest gun, and as the undisputed leader, he’s the one they challenge in a battle of “fists or knives.”  In the interest of sustaining the uniqueness of the club, a sadly worn-out and world-weary Johnny turns to Benny, exhorting him to take over after him, as he’s got that silent charisma, the person the other members are trying to be because he has nothing and cares about nothing, emblematic of that ultimate freedom to do whatever the Hell he wants, but he doesn’t want the responsibility, as he’s happy just being a free spirit, an iconic James Dean-style figure who imagines himself a rebel without a cause.  This unraveling around the edges, however, is a sign of what’s to come, as their identity changes.  While Kathy offers a romantic perspective, she’s also concerned when things go haywire, and there’s a few shocking instances of brutality, but mostly this plays out like a road movie, as they’re always moving from place to place, even if it’s just around town, with Norman Reedus showing up as the zonked-out California biker Funny Sonny who decides to stay for a while.  But the connecting link between the past and the present are the interviews with Kathy, who is immensely charming, sharply funny, and keenly perceptive, whose matter-of-fact, no-holds-barred outlook adds a fresh perspective to the wall-to-wall machismo on display.  Some of the new club members are returning veterans coming straight back from Vietnam, bringing with them their drug addictions and propensity for senseless violence, giving way to more serious crimes.  Kathy finds herself in the middle of a room surrounded by leering male eyes with intentions of gang-raping her, where the trap she finds herself in is overwhelmingly real, making her quickly understand just how dangerous these guys can be without the proper supervision, offering a palpable sense of fear.  It’s a curious choice to tell a story about masculinity gone wild through the eyes of an outspoken woman who holds nothing back.  Documentary photographs from the book are shown at the end of the film, where it’s clear that what was so successful about the book is capturing the unvarnished essence of who the people are, as that still haunts the filmmaker, who works meticulously to authentically recreate that bygone era, now sharing that experience with a new audience, hoping they can step back in time and absorb this undiscovered world, never glorifying or romanticizing the bikers, instead revealing the loss of an oldschool lifestyle valuing freedom on the road above anything else, where the sardonic irony is the biker club sets up meetings, membership dues, and rules to follow for a bunch of guys who make it their business to ignore all the rules.  The 45 motorcycles in the film are 50 or 60 years old, sourced from the classic collection of stunt coordinator Jeff Milburn and his friends, representing vintage authenticity, which is also true of the rest of the film (while omitting the Swastikas, Iron Crosses, and blatant racial resentment), with most of the dialogue coming directly from the book.  Kathy’s relationship with Benny fuels an irreverent attitude that’s peppered throughout the film, musing on their marriage and the strain that his ties to the Vandals has placed on it, thinking it was only a matter of time before he ended up killing himself on his bike.  Kathy does most of the talking while Lyon listens, patiently recording her words over the course of nearly a decade.  Benny, meanwhile, remains an elusive figure.  While Kathy describes him at length, he barely utters a word and was never interviewed by Lyon.

I’ve had nothin’ but trouble since I married Benny.  I’ve seen more jails, been to more courts and met more lawyers, and it’s only a year.  That’s a short time for so much to happen. 

Benny thinks that when you die, you’re better off than when you’re living.  You know, like when his dad died, he said, “It’s just as well, he’s better off that way.”  When his friends got killed, well, they’re better off that way.  No feelings.

I thought I could change him, you know?  Every woman thinks that she can change a guy.  Not to her own ways, but to be different.  Not to be different, but to be, I don’t know.  Like he’s wild. I used to think he’d get over that.  But he don’t. 

The Revenant

THE REVENANT                 C-              
USA  (156 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  Alejandro González Iñárritu            Official Site

A bloated and largely overrated film about the wretched and the damned, where in the world of Hollywood bigger is better, so this existential tale of survival, which could resemble Robert Redford’s minimalistic effort in J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost (2013), is blown up to elevate and heighten its own sense of importance, literally plagiarizing Terrence Malick cinematic techniques to provide a sense of worldly transcendence, all of which makes this more than it is.  While there is a behind-the-scenes backstory about how difficult it was to make this film in the raw, wintry elements of Alberta, Canada, moving to the mountains of Argentina when there was insufficient snow, where the director is quoted as having indicated, “Every molecule of this film was absolutely difficult.”  Well that was by choice and by design, as this director intentionally makes the overall film experience as brutal and difficult as possible, enlarging and exaggerating a real-life endurance story from Michael Punke’s 2002 novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge to near mythological proportions, but in the process, the landscape is so overwhelming that humans are reduced to a near primitive state, as if living in the Stone Age.  While there is literally no story whatsoever expressed in the film, where we don’t understand the men’s connection to one another or what their mission is actually supposed to be, as events simply spiral out of control from the outset when we are introduced to them in the midst of a raging Indian battle, where the majority of their party is lost, forcing them to retreat by making their way onto a giant boat and heading down river, where they believe they are sitting targets for more Indian attacks.  At least partially based on the real-life fur trapper explorations of frontiersman Hugh Glass, the subject of Western lore often noted for its frequent embellishment, who was part of General Ashley's expedition of 1823 following the Missouri River through South Dakota into Montana, there is dissension in the ranks which develops into the overriding story throughout the film, as whatever strategy is suggested to accomplish their mission is fiercely contested.  But when Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear, the severity of his wounds are so dire that he is left for dead by the members of his party, taking his weapons and essential supplies, only to crawl out of the grave they left him in, trekking 350 miles through the wilderness alone in the dead of winter, literally clawing his way back to civilization, resurfacing at the nearest military post in Fort Kiowa, South Dakota.    

According to historian Jon T. Coleman, author of Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation, one of the attributes of American mountain men was their inherent ability to engage in hyperbole, as they were actively involved in stretching the imagination in the making of their own myths, where fabricating stories was woven into the actual history of the American West.  These men were “marginal people laboring in far-off places,” who came to be America’s heroes by working in such dangerous situations and placing themselves in harm’s way.   

Calamity preyed on Glass because he was vulnerable. His employer and his nation couldn’t protect him. He never established the alliances with the Indian leaders that safeguarded previous generations of European traders in the West. He bet his life on a poorly conceived scheme: that Americans thought they could sneak into the region, harvest furs with their own labor, and get out before the Native inhabitants punished them for their trespasses. This strategy worked for some—William Ashley emerged golden—but the majority of employees and free trappers slogged through the majestic scenery gaunt, scarred, and busted. The West beat them to pulp.

While this bit of background information at least frames the film, the director’s unwillingness to do the same results in a freefall into a narrative abyss, a hole the viewer is never able to crawl out of, as there is never anything resembling an actual story or any clear understanding of what brought these men together, as they are led by a military commander, engage in an unending war with the Indians, but they’re not soldiers, or even hired mercenaries, but simply hunters and fur trappers sent on an unknown mission, where one would presume Indians are among their trading partners, yet all this is lost in the psychological extremities of the film itself.  The opening twenty minutes or so are among the best scenes of the film, as the disorientation plays into the chaos of the battlefield, where the roving camerawork by Emmanuel Lubezki mixes an uncontrollable panic with painterly compositions and the visceral experience of death, offering something of a shock to the senses right from the outset.  In the aftermath, as the men drift away to apparent safety on one of their rafts, that panic-stricken mood only grips them deeper, as they are a divisive group led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), who defers to Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) acting as their guide, as he has the most experience working in the area, recommending traversing an inland path away from the river and away from the Indians, where they would have to hide much of their gear and come back for it later, as it would simply be too much to carry, a thought immediately contested by John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), who finds it foolhardy to leave the river and all that they collected, which amounts to abandoning their earnings.  Throwing it all away does not sit well with him, so he engages in a battle of vicious verbal warfare targeting Glass as untrustworthy, as he’s spent time living among the Indians and is traveling with his own half-Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), who dresses and identifies as an Indian.  This kind of racist venom may be typical of the times, but it’s brutally ugly, putting everyone on edge, where it soon becomes clear that the resentment is so deep that Fitzgerald would just as soon kill Glass than follow his orders.  The severity of the bear attack gives him that opportunity, as it becomes too burdensome carrying Glass through the wilderness, so Henry, fearing another Indian attack, leaves a small attachment behind to give him a proper burial, as his death appears imminent.  Fitzgerald volunteers for the assignment and undermines the mission from the start, fabricating a story of having seen Indians nearby, claiming they can no longer wait, secretly murdering his son Hawk, claiming he’s gone missing, then burying the gravely wounded Glass alive.

 
What follows is an existential resurrection of epic proportions, grim and foreboding, becoming a story of Odysseus enduring what God, man, Mother Nature, and the elements could throw at him and somehow he still manages to survive.  A “revenant” is a ghost returned from the grave, often to terrorize the living, but what we’re witness to is an example of torture porn, as there’s some question whether DiCaprio is even acting.  Instead he’s forced to endure every notion of physical hardship the director could batter him with, growing ridiculous after awhile, where we’re forced to witness a series of grunts and groans and moaning to the heavens with close-ups on a bloodied face, going to excessively showy and gratuitous heights, literally piling on the misery, becoming narcissistically brutal, where the primitive conditions feel like a return to Neanderthal times, forcing DiCaprio to plunge into frozen rivers, stagger half-naked through the frigid cold, jump off a hundred-foot cliff while riding a horse yet surviving with all his limbs intact, sleep in the carcass of a dead animal, grab fish out of water or meat from a freshly killed animal and eat it raw, blood dripping from his mouth.  It becomes pathetic when a filmmaker feels obliged to wring every ounce of anguish and abomination out of the situation, intentionally bombarding the audience with just how dire and destitute his situation is, turning wretched after awhile, reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004),  piling on the gloom and doom, so that the mindnumbing effect on the audience feels overly sadistic and tortuous, as if the intent of the director is to literally pile on every vile aspect of human torment, which has the effect of intentionally pummeling an audience into submission.  Perhaps even worse, the film is so blatantly moralistic, all good or evil, and goes to such extraordinary lengths to copycat the cinematic style of Terrence Malick in The New World (2005) or 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #1 The Tree of Life, from the vastness of primeval landscapes (shot by the same cinematographer) to the spirit voices of the dead that accompany Glass’s journey, an offensive tactic to cinephiles, as the eloquence of Malick’s transcendent films are so uniquely reverent and sacred, yet here it feels so meaningless, as his characters are one-note throughout, without an ounce of progression throughout the storyline.  Tom Hardy was lauded for his performance, becoming the personification of evil, yet it sounds like he has rocks in his mouth, as you can’t understand a word he says throughout the entire picture.  While this over-indulgent effort is hailed for its brutality, garnering 12 Academy Award nominations, yet it’s another Hollywood exercise of excess and exaggeration, feeling stupefying empty for a nearly 3-hour experience, clearly becoming one of the most overrated films of the year.    

Guest review by Jonathan Dabian 

So, I love the film, actually.  And I kind of hate it.  But I’ll get to that later.

I think you have misjudged the film.  Rather harshly...and a little inaccurately.  You don’t like violence and brutality in film.  That’s ok.  I get that.  Unfortunately, I think that kind of blinds you to certain films.

This film exists in the realm of Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy.  For these authors, life is about the interplay of simple animal survival with higher concepts and masculine ideals like responsibility, duty, self-actualization, and engagement with society.  Malick plays in this realm too, particularly in The Thin Red Line.  I’m not referring to the “nature photography” you were talking about, but about the ways that Elias Koteas’ & John Cusack’s characters handled their duty in leading their men in assaults.  They knew the costs would be monstrous, but they had their objectives, and they were determined to honor their duties and fulfill their responsibilities.

I do not think the film resides in the Manichean black & whites you see.  Pretty much every character is grey.  The American and French trappers aren’t purely victims.  They’re ravaging the environment by killing all of the animals the local Native American populations relied-upon for survival.  And they’re doing it simply to obtain furs for the fur trade.  The Arikara warriors are one of the two main antagonists in the film (from Glass’ perspective), but they aren’t unreasoning.  Their rampage is motivated by the willful destruction of their environment by the French and American trappers, the assault upon their tribe by American soldiers, and the kidnapping of their Chief’s daughter by the French trappers.  More specifically, Glass is defending himself and his son against the Arikara and Fitzgerald, while simultaneously being party to the destruction of the environment committed by the American trappers and soldiers (see also the destruction of the buffalo herds, which is referenced in at least two shots with the piles of buffalo skulls).  Fitzgerald is in the same position being a party to the destruction of the environment and the murderer of Glass’ son.  Glass and Fitzgerald are also, however, fighting for their own survival in their own Western/American/Capitalist world.  While we can judge them negatively for their destruction of the environment that the Arikara and Pawnee rely upon to survive, we can’t judge them negatively for their desire to survive within their own worlds.  EVERYONE has the right to survive (but not at the expense of someone else’s survival).  Neither of the main characters, or the four cultures portrayed in the film (American, French, Pawnee, Arikara), are purely black and white (well, maybe the Pawnee).

In fact, the only people in the film who aren’t portrayed negatively in some way are the Pawnee who are victims of both the European colonials and the Arikara.  They’ve been driven from their homes by the assault upon the environment, and Arikara depredations (the Pawnee man who saves Glass mentions that his family and village were massacred by the Arikara), assault by soldiers (Glass’ wife was killed by soldiers, and his son nearly so as well); and those Pawnee left are stuck living in a slum outside the fort.  Their women are used as prostitutes inside the fort by American trappers.

You mention the “spirit of Terrence Malick.”  In many ways this is due to both of them using Emmanuel Lubezki as their shared Cinematographer.  However, I maintain that while there’s certainly a lot of “natural beauty” and landscapes in both films, the use of natural settings is thematically VERY different for the two directors.  Malick focuses on making his natural scenes quasi-religious and philosophical.  Iñárritu uses these big natural vistas in the background, but he doesn’t elevate them to the level of poetry like Malick does (outside of a handful of scenes).  Iñárritu uses nature as the background.  Malick uses it as the subject.  Lubezki just happens to be driving the camera for both.

Glass’ journey is driven due to, initially, his commitment to duty (his job as lead tracker and guide); and then after Fitzgerald’s betrayal and murder of his son, commitment to his son/family.  His journey is filled with horrors, but it is necessary, even with the massive threats to his own survival, to fulfill his duty to his son and repay the debt due to Fitzgerald.  To abrogate this responsibility would be unthinkable.  He might as well be dead otherwise.  This is the same dilemma that motivates Koteas’ & Cusack’s characters in The Thin Red Line.  Koteas’ character abrogates his responsibility.  He disobeys his orders and loses his command and his place among his men.  Essentially, he loses his life and his place in society.  Cusack’s character does his grim duty.  He sees some of his men die.  He kills many others (the Japanese).  However, he fulfills his duty and preserves his place in society and his ability to continue leading, and protecting, his men.  (Actually, I’ve totally forgotten to mention Caviezel’s character too.  He faces the same dilemma as Koteas’ character, initially chooses the same path as Koteas’ character, and then re-embraces his duty and pays the ultimate price for it.  But in doing so, he protects the rest of the men in his scouting party and the lives of his entire Company).  This is very similar to the paths followed by Hemingway’s protagonists Robert Jordan (For Whom the Bell Tolls) and Thomas Hudson (Islands in the Stream).  McCarthy’s protagonists Suttree, Moss, and The Man also engage with these issues in Suttree, No Country for Old Men, and The Road (respectively).

Since seeing The Revenant, I have been haunted by the final images of Glass climbing up the hill, favoring his wounds, to see a hallucination of his gentle Pawnee wife in idyllic natural surroundings.  In his eyes you can see all of the torture and pain, all of the threats to his survival that he’s endured over the last few weeks (see note below) in order to fulfill his duty.  Contrasting all of that pain against an idyllic and peaceful existence with nature, the film is asking the audience:  “Was it worth it?  Was fulfilling his responsibility worth the horrors he committed and endured?  Would he have been better-off disengaging and surrendering his agency, like Suttree, and Caviezel’s & Koteas’ characters in The Thin Red Line?”

Note:  Remember, this film doesn’t take place over the course of a day or two.  If I remember correctly, after they abandon Glass, the remaining scout says it’s going to take them three weeks to circumnavigate the mountains to the fort.  Glass’ journey would have been even longer than that, due to his wounds, thus addressing your comment about his ability to suddenly walk.  I don’t think he really regains his ability to walk again until after feeding from the downed buffalo with the Pawnee man and being placed in the make-shift, heated, healing teepee allowing his body to run a fever and burn out his infections.

Side note:  As I said in the beginning, I love The Revenant.  I also hate it.  Mainly because this film has the “spirit” of what I think a film adaptation of the second of Cormac McCarthy’s greatest works (the other being Suttree):  Blood Meridian.  Blood Meridian is one of those novels that has been in perpetual script development hell in Hollywood.  It’s epic.  It’s violent.  It’s incredibly risky, and probably unfilmable.  However, the way Iñárritu filmed The Revenant is exactly how I imagine Blood Meridian.  To the extent that, if anyone were to actually make Blood Meridian (and do it justice), it would probably be written off as a copy of The Revenant.  That said, I doubt that Blood Meridian will ever be made.  The scope of the film is simply too large and too niche.

Incidentally, another thing that makes me angry about this film is that it has MANY events, character traits, and bits of imagery that feature prominently in Blood Meridian.  Blood Meridian includes a bear attack.  Assaults on, and massacres of, Indian encampments.  A LONG journey and manhunt across the entire SW US and Mexico, from the plains and deserts of Texas & Mexico to snow-covered alpine forests in the Rocky Mountains, to the SanFran coast.  Massive brutal violent imagery, including mass scalp taking (hundreds of scalps taken for bounties).  A main character who is partially scalped (Toadvine in Blood Meridian, Fitzgerald in The Revenant).  The piles of buffalo skulls.  (Thirty-one million buffalo were slaughtered by American settlers in the plains between 1868 and 1881 in order to protect new cropland and to deprive the Native American tribes of the animal they relied-upon most for their survival.  They were nearly driven to extinction.  Less than a million are alive today.  The furs from the massacres were sent east.  The corpses left to rot in the fields.  The skulls stacked in piles.  This imagery features many times in McCarthy’s various novels, and very prominently in the denouement and epilogue to Blood Meridian.)  These were constant threats to the actual settlers of the period, but there are just too many similarities and overlaps between the two to avoid comparison should Blood Meridian ever be adapted to film.

I hope I’ve actually managed to say something half-way interesting, illuminating, and thought-provoking here.