★★ (2 out of 4)
Let’s clear up some confusion. A promotional miscalculation led the new Paul Greengrass historical epic to be mistitled “The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood,” leading folks to think they might be watching a prequel of sorts to “The Death of Robin Hood,” the Hugh Jackman flop released in June. Presumably the rebranding was meant to get audiences more interested in a less sexy epic starring Andrew Garfield that dramatizes the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England. Hollywood desperation? At press time, wiser heads prevailed to shorten the film’s title back to “The Uprising” and erase all images of men in tights.
Hope that helps. A British filmmaker with the reputation of Greengrass doesn’t need yet another blot on his already troubled film. An Oscar nominee for the superb 9-11 drama “United 93,” Greengrass is also known for three Jason Bourne movies and the acclaimed “Bloody Sunday” and “Captain Phillips.” His credentials are indisputable.
No less passionate in intention is Garfield’s commitment to the role of a rebel known only as the Ploughman. Still, early reviews couldn’t get over the attempted rebranding that traded the gritty reality of a genuine peasant rebellion for a tacked-on, franchise-teasing fable. Ouch!
Greengrass's signature handheld, documentary-style camerawork and frantic editing was pummeled as feeling disorienting, seasick inducing and entirely incongruous within a medieval period setting, adding that the relentless, unmodulated momentum leaves no room to breathe, flattening complex social rage into a muddy and exhausting slog.
Whew! At its core, “The Uprising” is an attempt to evoke history with an eye toward the “tragic inevitability” of what’s happening in the real world right this very minute as one-percenters strive to bring the rest of us to heel. It’s a big swing and Greengrass misses more than he hits. But the fire of his ambition in a multiplex swimming with superhero slop deserves at least a half-hearted salute.
Somehow an attempt to film history as it was to point to a present that shockingly is has been compromised.
Garfield’s Ploughman, in service to a local lord, works a farm where his wife and two children are buried—the Black Death having recently wiped out the population. Praying for God’s deliverance, the peasants learn the Church charity has run dry. And that King Richard II (an outstanding Woody Norman), being only 14 years old, has allowed his council to tax the peasants with impunity. Tom Hollander as Treasurer Robert Hales, Stephen Dillane as Archbishop Simon Sudbury and Jonny Lee Miller as London’s Mayor William Walworth are particularly despicable. The Ploughman snaps, joining a peasant army led by ex-soldier Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) and renegade priest John Ball (Jamie Bell).
The peasants, including Alyce (Thomasin McKenzie), are fueled by rage that Greengrass refuses to soften. The violence is horrific. And the young King’s treacherous retaliation more than matches it. Even his mother, Joan of Kent (Katherine Waterston), is appalled by it. Cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth shoots these scenes as a literal hell on earth. What a shame that Greengrass takes us out of the period with aerial views of the slaughter shot by drones. If any historical film needed to stay true to an authentic sense of time and place, “The Uprising” is it.
That it doesn’t and that it resorts to deceptive advertising to sell tickets is a knock on the film that is hard to shake. Garfield does his touching and vital best to hold us to the bruised humanity of his character, but even this fine actor is soon lost in the army of visual and aural distractions marshaled by Greengrass. Somewhere along the line, an attempt to film history as it was to point to a present that shockingly is has been compromised by trickery, no different than the king promising one thing to his subjects and delivering another. Some things never change.