Paul Greengrass, the director you may remember from films such as News of the World and Captain Phillips, tells a story in The Uprising that shares a theme with some of the greatest stories ever written throughout human history: the story of a man who becomes a hero against his will.
Set in post-plague England in 1381, the story follows an ordinary man named Ploughman (Andrew Garfield), who, after killing a soldier who has been abusing the people, finds himself becoming the leader of a growing uprising against rising taxes after having lost his wife and two children to the plague.
At this point, I want to mention a small detail about the film, because there seems to be some confusion regarding the connection between this film and the legend of Robin Hood. A few weeks before the film was released in the United States, the film’s distributor began promoting it under the title The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood and added the tagline “The uprising that inspired the legend of Robin Hood” to the poster. It is possible to say that this was a marketing move designed to get Americans who may not be familiar with terms such as medieval Europe, the plague, or “uprising,” but who do know Robin Hood, into theaters. However, while writing this review, I noticed that the film did not exactly become a box-office success. So, in short, perhaps you shouldn’t resort to cheap tricks like this and should simply have some faith in your film. Much like Disney did when promoting Spider-Man: No Way Home without ever featuring Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire in its marketing campaign.
Unfortunately, The Uprising does the opposite. I don’t know whether this was because the people behind the film lacked confidence or faith in it, or whether it was simply greed. Because although The Uprising does not exactly have the most gripping pace — though one has to wonder how thrilling a story set in medieval Europe can be, even when that story is about a rebellion and a war — that does not change the fact that it has performances well above average, a good story, and an almost Werner Herzog-like harsh realism.
Though, of course, the fact that the film has a rather bad ending also remains.
Shot in real, preserved medieval towns in Bavaria and Nuremberg, the film offers an incredibly satisfying visual experience, with an atmosphere that allows you to deeply feel the historical setting, combined with Greengrass’s classic handheld, shaky-camera style.
I won’t be unfair to Americans: I am not particularly knowledgeable about history either, especially medieval European history. In fact, I barely know anything about Robin Hood myself. Even so, The Uprising has a certain charm that manages to spark a genuine curiosity about these subjects.
