Producers: Aaron Ryder, Andrew Swett, Alexander Black and Hugh Jackman Director: Michael Sarnoski Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, Noah Jupe, Faith Delaney and Jade Croot Distributor: A24
Grade: C-
One could concoct plenty of interesting scenarios for a continuation of the Robin Hood legend onscreen, the most beguiling version of which remains the 1938 Errol Flynn movie despite numerous efforts to supersede it. That’s why it’s perplexing that given the opportunity, Michael Sarnoski has chosen to make a dreary, doom-laden revisionist one inspired by a ballad dating back to at least the seventeenth century, though after witnessing the result one might question whether inspiration was in any way involved: “The Death of Robin Hood” is a cinematic cataclysm of murk, mist, misery, and mayhem that’s as depressing as the Flynn film was exhilarating.
In this version, Robin is no heroic figure who fought tyranny and helped the downtrodden. He was, as he admits, a particularly brutal outlaw, proficient only in murder and robbery. The legends that have sprung up around him are nothing but fake news he fostered himself.
Now the year is 1247, during the troubled reign of Henry III, and Robin (Hugh Jackman) is a grizzled old King Lear type, wandering the desolate landscape (the film was shot by Pat Scola in spectacular Irish locations, supplemented by David Lee’s production design), haunted by thoughts of past misdeeds and impending death. After killing and burying a young woman (Jane Croot) who tries to rob him as he sleeps, he’s approached by his erstwhile comrade-in-arms Little John (Bill Skarsgård) to attack a family in retaliation for their having raided his farm and abducted his wife Margaret (Katie Breen). In the ensuing melee and fire, a quite gruesome and bloody set piece, she’s killed, as are many of the family. But Robin is badly wounded by the beefy patriarch, whom John dispatches.
John takes Robin to a remote island priory where, under a false name, he can be tended and perhaps restored to health by its prioress Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer). (In the ballad, a much more sedate affair, the prioress is his cousin.) In the course of his lengthy treatment they grow closer (curiously, she seems to live an isolated life, and only once do we glimpse any other nuns at the place at all). Robin also acts as guardian and mentor to John’s daughter Little Margaret (Faith Delaney), a red-haired moppet who constantly appears to be peering at the adults from behind some tree.
Trees are also a major point in Robin’s relationship to an unnamed leper (Murray Bartlett), who tends to the priory’s orchards while living in seclusion on its grounds. He’s a philosophical sort who delivers quietly instructive life lessons while introducing Robin to the trees—apple, pear and elderberry—he diligently cares for. He’s swaddled in bandages that obscure his features until they’re removed to reveal his face in a deathbed sequence, during which he delivers a final plea to Robin to come to terms with his wayward life.
One outsider makes his way to the priory, a young man with a badly injured eye calling himself Arthur (Noah Jupe). As he eventually admits, he’s actually Godwin, the surviving member of the family Robin and John had slaughtered earlier. He’d been tending to the flocks during the massacre, learning of it from his younger brother, whom Robin had struck in the head with an arrow as he was trying to escape (one of several instances in which that gruesome sight is depicted for us).
Now Arthur/Godwin arrives in need of the prioress’ attention, apparently on a mission of revenge that was violently interrupted by John. Robin is suspicious of him, and what action he’ll take becomes a test of whether his time on the island has led to any remorse over the easy brutality that’s always dominated his decisions.
The film reaches its climax when Robin’s true identity is revealed, and the prioress takes a decision that returns us to the ancient ballad’s account of his death, though in this version Little Margaret, rather than her father, takes part.
Jackman is committed, though not very compelling, throughout, and Comer presents a conflicted figure whose ultimate judgment is at best opaque. The rest of the cast are adequate but unexceptional, with Jupe looking particularly lost. On the visual side Lorna Marie Mugan adds credible costumes to the gloomy milieu created by Scola and Lee, and Jim Ghedi contributes a suitably dire score. But after the grim action scenes of the first thirty minutes, Sarnoski and editor Andrew Mondshein opt for a meditative pace that becomes positively lugubrious as the film lumbers to the two-hour mark.
Confusing pretension with profundity, “The Death of Robin Hood” tries desperately to portray the torturous route a struggle toward redemption often takes, but in the end it’s the viewer who might feel that he’s the one suffering.
Incidentally, the ballad which Sarnoski has used as a springboard for his tale was also the basis for James Goldman’s screenplay for “Robin and Marian,” a 1976 quasi-sequel to his Oscar-winning “The Lion in Winter” that turned it into a period romantic comedy with adventure elements. Directed by Richard Lester, that film had its own problems, but it boasted a terrific cast and was certainly much more enjoyable than this heavy-handed misfire.