This film is unbelievable. Literally, it is not believable. Well, it is possibly believable but there is no way, right?

And there it is. This film holds us in this confused and blissful limbo for its duration. Is it fable? Is it folklore? Is it truth? And that, in part, is what makes it incredible. A revenant is someone who has simply returned but with the added mythical and biblical caveat, “supposedly from the dead.” The brilliant Alejandro Inarritu challenges our faith, and the story we might know, from the title alone.

It is a grueling watch, for sure, and in DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass, we feel all of it. This is partly because of the amazing cinematography but mostly because of Leo’s epic, all-inclusive (gritty and intelligent) performance. The emotional surprise from the film was the visceral hatred developed for Fitzgerald. This rivals the disdain developed for Commodus in Gladiator and puts Hardy in exclusive company.

Inarritu places us in a fascinating time in history. We are theatrically transported and that is challenging. The Revenant proves that revenge is a dish best served cold, or in the cold, with 4.6 out of 5 napkins on the side.

Adam McKay, a zany screenwriter, interprets a highly analytical book and produces a slapstick film adaptation. It’s a nice trick but the end result is gimmicky, hodgepodge and funnier than it needed to be.

The Big Short, a conceptually formidable drama, turns into a weird comedy when Ryan Gosling’s character wipes out the fourth wall and admits to the audience that the previous scene never actually happened. And that’s just the beginning.

The celebrity cameos used to explain financial lingo are amusing interludes but misplaced. I was okay with the “Jenga” collapse analogy contained in the actual movie. These vignettes highlighted an inability to write the actual story into the story. This has many theater goers talking about Anthony Bourdain’s fish instead of Christian Bale’s excellent performance. Heretofore, McKay made assumptions about economic knowledge and interest of his audience which shorts, well, us.

I didn’t dislike the film. I joined in the laughter. The overly tanned and arrogant Gosling was hilarious but I didn’t expect humor to be the big takeaway from The Big Short. The film can only make a 3.1 out of 5 napkin down payment, making it unable to finance Film Clas elite status.

***The photo is of a drawing in the book “All the Buildings in New York That I’ve Drawn So Far” by James Gulliver Hancock published by Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International Publishing, Inc. 300 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10010***