Death of Robin Hood review: Dark, subversive take on folk legend
When you picture Robin Hood, you probably think of the legendary folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, as we’ve seen in many screen depictions. In The Death of Robin Hood, a dark revisionist interpretation of the tale, we see a completely different version: a savage, murderous brute and certainly no hero.
Set in 1247 England, the film begins with an aged Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman), complete with a long, grey beard and hair, living in self-imposed exile in the wilderness. After spending his outlaw years murdering hundreds without a second thought, there are many people who want to seek retribution at every turn. After he is gravely injured in a fight, he is taken to a priory on a remote island and cared for by Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer). He stays on the island to hide from those avengers and uses an alias to keep his identity secret.
I found the first 30 minutes really hard work. The story is not particularly clear; it’s hard to understand what Jackman and Bill Skarsgård (as fellow outlaw Little John) are saying with their wildly inconsistent regional English accents, and there’s a lot of ultraviolent killing without a clear narrative reason. It all makes sense later, once you get to know his backstory better, but it was a serious struggle to get into this bleak and brutal setting, no matter how beautiful the harsh, rugged landscapes and cinematography were.
Thankfully, the film picks up when the story moves to Sister Brigid’s nunnery. Comer is like a ray of light who breaks through the brutality and offers someone to care about. She brings out the best in Robin too, and we learn more about him and his past as he forges a new life on the island with an orphaned girl, Little Margaret (Faith Delaney), as his surrogate daughter. The story becomes clearer, the gory violence fades away, and the dynamics between Robin, Brigid and Margaret are interesting to see play out.
Considering he’s best known for playing the superhero Wolverine, it takes some getting used to seeing Jackman portraying such a monstrous bandit. He certainly makes a statement with his grizzled, aged look! It’s really hard to square this version of Robin Hood with what we’ve grown up being told. He nails the brooding, introspective vibe, but his accent – which is truly all over the map – lets his otherwise committed performance down. Comer is the star of the show and a much-needed beacon of hope in such a dark film.
The Death of Robin Hood, written and directed by Pig filmmaker Michael Sarnoski, is a tale of two halves. The first half is bleak, brutal and challenging, but the second is a contemplative redemption tale. The story gets better as it goes along, and it pays off nicely in the end.
In cinemas from Wednesday 2nd September