“The Revenant” destroyed the stereotypical Hollywood revenge film. Brutally realistic, harrowing and emotionally driven, it blew my expectations out of the water in every possible way.

The story starts off with a group of fur trappers led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) and frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) gathering all of what they have hunted when they are attacked by a large group of Arikara Native Americans to which the hunters refer to as the “Ree.” Only 11 men out of 45 survive the attack as they escape by boat.

John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a hunter fueled by greed, begins to resent Glass and his mixed race Pawnee son Hawk. After Glass is attacked and severely wounded by a grizzly bear, Fitzgerald and a young hunter named Bridger are ordered to watch over Glass with his son until he inevitably dies. Fitzgerald ends up killing Hawk and lying to Bridger in order to leave Glass for dead. Glass sees Fitzgerald kill his son and as he recovers over the course of the movie, becomes deadset on getting vengeance for his son.

“The Revenant” brings brutal reality to the story of a father’s revenge. At no point in the movie does Glass ever kill hundreds of nameless grunts without getting as much as a scratch. Glass has to survive the harsh climate in order to find Fitzgerald. At times, he must eat the still-beating heart of a buffalo or the marrow from its bones. There are many moments where you feel like Glass should just give up and forgive and forget, but he only pursues onward. When he does find Fitzgerald, retribution is swift.

The only downsides of the movie are that there are many excessively slow moments, and there are certain flashbacks to Glass’ past that are not really explained or end up as a plothole. It is easily redeemed by the brutal violence that results, and the incredible feats that Hugh Glass goes through.

‘The Revenant” is already my favorite movie of 2016 and I hope that Leonardo DiCaprio actually wins the Oscar that has eluded him for so long.