Focus Features really screwed the pooch with the marketing of The Uprising, Paul Greengrass’ historical drama charting the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Perhaps fearing that the film had zero buzz, they erroneously tried marketing it as a Robin Hood origin story. This also fell flat, as audiences clearly don’t give a shit about the outlaw or his Merry Men, as evidenced by The Death of Robin Hood just weeks ago. To be fair, some stories of this rebellion are linked to the mythology of the character, even if he predates it by years, but that’s not the movie Greengrass is offering, anyway. And even if it was, it’s doubtful anyone could sit through this bland, tired slog that is about as exciting as reading the Wikipedia entry.
Andrew Garfield leads the cast as Ploughman, a hard-working everyman mourning the loss of his family to the plague. This corner of England is pretty atrocious; with King Richard II (Woody Norman), a child sitting upon the throne, being guided by his advisors to tax the Hell out of the struggling people even though they already have nothing. This, naturally, pisses them off. None more so than Ploughman, who, after being asked to prove he paid the Death Tax for his family, attacks the tax collector and starts a violent revolt.
The problem with Ploughman is that he’s a construct built to be part of the story, but not the leader of it. The actual leader of the Peasants’ Revolt was Wat Tyler, played by Cosmo Jarvis, joined by the fiery priest John Ball, played by Jamie Bell. Ploughman sort of becomes a passenger in this story, along for the ride but not really driving it forward. It doesn’t help that Garfield, a terrific actor by any definition, doesn’t have the rugged features that Bell, Jarvis, and even Thomasin McKenzie as the fictional tomboy warrior Alyce convincingly bring.
Greengrass can still deliver a formidable action sequence. The Uprising boasts a couple of them; muddy, murky, bloody battles that rival Braveheart in style and scope. They bookend a flabby middle portion that’s tough to endure, with endless prattle by the corrupt royal council or the peasants themselves, who waffle between wanting to love the King and wanting to destroy everything. It’s a missed opportunity that Greengrass’ script doesn’t draw the obvious connections to today, with an increasingly malevolent, wealthy ruling class stepping on the necks of a frustrated populace. The parallels write themselves.
And as for that Robin Hood stuff, The Uprising doesn’t mention the folk hero at all, but it does nod to the character in a bizarre, torturous epilogue full of arrows, masks, and not-so-merry men. The sequence feels wildly out of place, and the film would’ve been better off not including it at all. Either way, The Uprising misses the target, a rare total misfire for Greengrass.
The Uprising opens in theaters September 11th.
