I can’t say that one of my favorite filmmakers, Paul Greengrass, made the wisest decision in trying to make a famous “Off with their heads!” peasants’ rebellion the basis for the legend of Robin Hood.
The legend seems to date from assorted outlaws and knights who went rogue in the 13th century, and “The Uprising” is a fictionalized retelling of the events of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
But the director of “United 93,” “Captain Phillips,” “Bloody Sunday” and the best of the Bournes takes a shot at rendering this cherished piece of English history relevent to his (British born) times, and ours. And if your ears perk up when his script has someone use the word “deplorables” to describe those the elites tax and work to death, and another charactor growl “No kings,” that’s your clue.
Every so often, the Little People reach their breaking point and rise up. Such stories hearten the downtrodden in our darkest hours. And even doomed revolts have their idealistic origins, good reasons to “take arms against a sea of troubles.” The same goes for movies that overreach.
Andrew Garfield is a poor ploughman in the lowlands of Essex, a lost soul mourning those in the three graves of his hardscrabble farm. His wife and children died in the Black Death. Half the population of England perished with them.
That’s reduced the ranks of taxpayers and serfs, hitting the Church, the Crown and the Royal Council of advisors to teen King Richard II (Woody Norman) where they live. How can they finance wars in Scotland and France and live, dress and eat in the style they’ve grown accustomed to?
Tax businessfolk? No, they’ll “want a place at the table” of power for that, Treasurer Hales (Tom Hollander) warns. So, it’s the peasants again who’ve got to foot the bill. An archbishop (Stephen Dillane) can only cluck in mock sympathy.
When the Essex taxman — backed by chainmailed sergeants at arms — enforces rents and taxes demanded by the havesof the have-nots since all the land was divvied up by the Normans and “writ” in The Domesday Book, when he insists the Ploughman pay not only what he owes but also the “Death Tax” on his lost family, when his goons start molesting girls to see if they’re old enough to be taxed as adults, the protests of the local priest fall on deaf ears.
The Ploughman is the one who bellows “ENOUGH!” And when the goons come for him, they face his rage and eventually, his sharpened scythe.
The Peasants’ Revolt has begun. It spreads, with the Ploughman leading villagers who stuck up for him to the tax records holdings, torching the paperwork and killing anyone who stands in their way. “Heretic” priest John Ball’s release (Jamie Bell) from prison gives them a rabble-rousing motivational speaker. And soldier Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) gives the rebels just enough leadership to point them at London.
With the king’s army tied up in Scotland and France, “commons” will march on the city, “petition the king” and “save him” from his evil councillors.
“Up the commons,” they shout. The common men and women (Thomasin McKenzie plays a furious agitator who used to be a nun) will be heard and they will have their grievances addressed.
The queen mum (Katherine Waterston) may be concerned and seem sympathetic. But she’s most concerned for her callow kid with the crown, who is having nightmares, listening to tyrannical advice and plainly not in charge here.
Garfield is credible enough as this farmer who turns out to be awfully hard to kill, even when he’s facing professional fighting men. That’s the magic of movies, and the often-scripted power of “rage” to help one overcome any foe.
Jarvis is even more believable, and Bell works up a fine lather as a raging priest revolting against a heartlessly corrupt church, among other evils. McKenzie makes a nice zealot and Waterston gives us shades of “inscrutable” as the mother of a bratty mop top better suited to a boy band than a crown.
Greengrass utterly immerses us in this world of wood, thatch, oppression and mud. He taps into the working class appeal of this story, whose “politics” are as obvious and simplistic as they were in “Spartacus,” “Les Miserables” and in “Peterloo.”
As it would take the Brits almost another 300 years to break their monarchical addiction — with extreme prejudice and yet only temporarily — we know this story will take a turn towards a doomed poignancy. Ideals remain out of reach, snatched by ugly human nature and the determination of those with “the addiction of wealth” to maintain it.
But I’ll say this for Greengrass. He always serves up a thought-provoking ride. Even when the tale eyerollingly turns towards Sherwood Forest, I was thinking about the ancestral estate right across the road from ours, deeded to a Virginia family by “Mad” King George III well over 250 years ago, and still in their hands to this day, even though they haven’t lived on it or worked it in forever.
Chew on that and tell me “progressive” taxation is “fair” and that most people, “deplorable” or not, would think “ENOUGH” loud enough for the next spark of “Uprising” to break out.
Rating: R, graphic violence
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Thomasin McKenzie, Woody Norman, Katherine Waterston, Stephen Dillaine, Tom Hollander, Sky Yang and Cosmo Jarvis
Credits: Scripted and directed by Paul Greengrass. A Focus Features release.
Running time: 2:06
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