Andrew Garfield plays a grieving serf who joins forces with Jamie Bell’s radical priest in Paul Greengrass’ medieval rebellion
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
From Cambridge-educated Englishman Paul Greengrass of “United 93” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” two near-classics (except for those awful shaky-cams), comes “The Uprising,” a film in which Andrew Garfield, identified only as Ploughman, sports a scarred cheek and wields a mighty sickle in the name of the poor, beleaguered common folk of 14th century Britain. Set in 1381, around the time poet William Langland was composing his Robin Hood-citing poem “Piers Plowman,” England is ruled by a moody, untested boy-king named Richard II (Woody Norman), who is protected by his beautiful Countess mother (Katherine Waterston) and plots his moves with a small group, including evil Archbishop Sudbury (a serpentine Stephen Dillane) and Treasurer Hales (a delightfully vile Tom Hollander). As the new King, Richard inherited the Hundred Years’ War. He and his counselors believe they have the God-given right to tax the peasants into hunger and despair to fight it. Ahem.
As the real-life John Ball, the radical priest often cited as the firebrand leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, we have “Billy Elliot” himself, Jamie Bell. In the role of the young, former nun named Alyce, who joins the revolt and becomes a fan of Ball and Ploughman, we have Thomasin McKenzie, who surely wished screenwriter Greengrass had given her something more substantial to do.
Presented by Focus Features as the real-life story that planted the seeds of the Robin Hood myth, and though the whole enterprise often trembles on the liminal edge of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “The Uprising” is Robin Hood at his grungiest. It also follows a bit hard upon the heels of Hugh Jackman in last June’s A24 dud “The Death of Robin Hood.” Our story’s proto-hero of Sherwood Forest is no hunky, pretty-boy Errol Flynn-type Sir Robin of Locksley, and he doesn’t brandish a bow and arrow. He’s a serf with a sickle holstered in a leather belt. Ploughman lost his wife and child in the second wave of the Great Plague. He is alone and therefore cannot put his family at risk.
The trouble begins when a tax collector allows his thugs to sexually manhandle peasant girls and women. When Ploughman objects, he is struck a blow on the side of his head and proceeds to beat the face off his attacker. Soon, he and Ball are leading angry crowds to places where records are kept and setting them ablaze in order to destroy documents that bind them to serfdom and feudal labor.
The number of rebels grows exponentially on the road to London. The peasants sing as they march. Ploughman stops a coach containing the Countess and speaks with her. Is this the Medieval meet-cute? The Countess certainly seems aroused by the sensitive peasant in the homespun suit. Is “The Uprising” about to turn into a proto-”Madame Bovary,” too? Or is the lonely, sex-starved Countess merely the template for Maid Marian? Once in London, Ball and Ploughman try, none too successfully, to keep their raging followers from murdering people who have preyed on them. We hear little, but not much, about Corpus Christi, a major holiday in the still-Catholic Blighty, and the Book of Doomsday, no, not a Marvel property, but a massive, 11th-century survey of England and Wales.
The King agrees to meet with the peasants and hear their grievances. I say, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” One of the film’s producers is horror-meister Jason Blum, who’s been on a rough run lately, including “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.” Armored, mounted soldiers lurk behind the greenery, never a good sign if you’re a disarmed, unarmored peasant. Don’t forget that Greengrass is the guy who directed the semi-documentary true story “Bloody Sunday” (2002). Unlike the occasional shaky-cams, the music of Oscar-winner Volker Bertelmann (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) is always welcome, especially in Germany, where the film was shot. Garfield, who can also be seen in the much more fun “The Magic Faraway Tree,” and Bell are both very good and clearly rebels of a kind in real-life. A final shout of “No Kings,” near the end delivers a timely jolt. No, indeed.
‘The Uprising’
Rating: R for strong violence, bloody images
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Thomasin McKenzie
Writer/Director: Paul Greengrass
Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: B
Boston Movie News 