The Death of Robin Hood: Movie Review

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Murray Bartlett, Bill Skarsgard
Director: Michael Sarnoski

There have been plenty of adaptations of the legend of Robin Hood.

But Pig director Michael Sarnoski's latest is less interested in the derring-do of heroes and the grim reality of life afterwards for those decreed outlaws.

In this mournful take, a grey-haired Hugh Jackman, looking very much like Geralt of Riviera from The Witcher game franchise, is Robin Hood, a man who spends his life hiding away on hills in 1241AD England, afeared of his legacy and contemplating whether he truly was a good man, or just a murderer who got away with it.

With most of his band of Merry Men dead, he teams up with Little John (Skarsgard) to take on one last fight to defend his home from past vengeful adversaries. But in vowing to settle a blood debt, Robin ends up critically wounded and transported to a priory run by Sister Brigid (Comer, in a restrained performance).

As she nurses him back to health, Robin's past misdeeds come back to provide a final reckoning for his troubled twilight years.

Taking inspiration from the ancient ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, Sarnoski crafts a dour, brooding, philosophical take on the anti-hero whose deeds belie a lifetime of murder. It begins with a windswept blizzard and ends in darkness too, with barely a hint of light bursting through except for one sequence inside the priory which bathes the audience in light - it's almost as if Sarnoski wears the oppressive atmosphere as a badge of honour.

There are elements of the Northman in a brutal series of meetings in the beginning of this, before the narrative gives way to a more maudlin, contemplative tale of personal salvation and desired redemption.

A fully wrapped Bartlett makes an intriguing foil as a leper living out his final days to Jackman's healing Hood, and a young girl gives Hood the chance to be a surrogate father at a dangerous time.

It's fair to say the brooding does overtake The Death of Robin Hood, but this elegiac reflection on what a life is and the sum of the deeds that lead it there make the film a haunting and spirittual one, one that relies on an internal journey to convey audiences.

In many ways, The Death of Robin Hood is about the death of the legend of the actual man, as well as a physical one, and Jackman delivers with a restrained performance that lacks showiness and delivers some amount of gravitas in muck-filled proceedings.

But it's Sarnoski that deserves the kudos here - for crafting a journey that carries a universal theme of redemption and regret. It may sag in moments, but it's never anything less than compelling.