The Death of Robin Hood: a review

I was looking at movie listings recently, getting ready for the upcoming movie The Odyssey. I’m very excited for that. But I noticed that The Death of Robin Hood is in theaters, and I’d forgotten it was out, as I’d been traveling. I got a ticket for one of the last few show times available.

The premise of the movie is that Robin Hood is old, tired, and remorseful. And further, that his crimes were never in service of “stealing from the rich to give to the poor,” but rather were a long series of horrible crimes committed simply for the hell of it. The trailer gives it the feel of a medieval version of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, a movie that completely deconstructed the mythos of the Old West and spaghetti westerns and replaced it with the haunted regret of an old outlaw. I hoped for a movie of similar quality.

The movie opens with a single block of text: 1247AD.

Henry III is King of England, the son of the bad King John, brother of Richard the Lionheart. Robin is old at this point, so this places this Robin Hood (in his younger years) squarely in the era of Richard. Could easily have gone on Crusade with him, as he is sometimes presented (e.g. in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood).

Strangely, nothing after this is done with the date. No political figures of note appear. We have no idea who is King, or even where in England we are. The movie was filmed in Ireland, and the landscape of the movie is cold, mountainous, windy, and foggy. This is no Sherwood Forest. The movie could have been set in 1600s Ireland, for all the movie gives us about that. I’m not even sure why they bothered to give us a date.

To go back to the “historical Robin Hood,” if such a thing can be said to exist, in the tales, the historical Robin Hood generally is pegged in later by at least 100 years. A complete post on the history of Robin Hood would be good fun, but it’s out of scope for this review (a full post on Robin Hood might be forthcoming at some point!). Suffice to say, the first written mention of Robin Hood appears in Piers Plowman, written in 1377, 150 years later. Robin Hood’s Death, the so-called Child Ballad #1201 on which the movie is based, is quite late, probably 17th century, though it has antecedents (for example, The Gest of Robin Hood2 ) that are earlier. Those early tales seem likely written not much earlier than 1400, and usually place Robin Hood in the late 1200s and into the 1300s. But I digress. In any case, this movie is not the Robin Hood you know.3

This movie is violent, dark, and strange. Violent like The Northmen violent, if you have seen that movie. If blood, burnings, arrows through eye sockets and axes through skulls bother you, sit this one out. And the movie is a bit of a puzzle.

It does deconstruct the Robin Hood tales. Hugh Jackman’s Robin Hood tells us early on the stories are all lies, and that they did what they did for sport. Though there is a “Little John,” and he comes calling to Robin’s mountainous isolation for help recovering his wife and daughter. Robin Hood agrees, and it is no spoiler to say that things do not go well. But it is clear that Robin is remorseful for the things he’s done, haunted by the men he’s killed, the ones he remembers and the ones he does not. But he is an efficient killer, as we soon see.

But when things go wrong, Robin is given a chance at redemption.

I won’t spoil where the movie goes, but the movie is increasingly moody, atmospheric, and yet without a great deal of bloodshed in its latter parts. It’s a meditation of sorts on the sins of the past. Guy of Gisborne, another familiar character from the legends, makes an appearance, though not the one you expect.

The movie is puzzling. Why lean into the year 1247, specifically? No use is made of it. If Robin was really just a thug who killed for sport, what led him to become Hugh Jackman’s introspective old man? The movie does not say, or even suggest. A triggering event in the movie is when Little John’s now-wife is taken back from him by (I think, at least) her family. But the events that occur afterwards do not square with the actions of a family. A budding romance seems to begin to develop between Robin and Sister Bridgid (Jodie Comer). It’s touching, but…Robin in this movie is as old as Methuselah and with a beard to match. (Ed to author: Hugh Jackman is 57, you are 63, you idiot, you are even older than that!). The budding romance seems, well, improbable.

[UPDATE: ok, after a bit of reading, I learn that the Sloane Manuscript in the British Museum contains The Life of Robin Hood, which contains a version of Robin’s death consistent with the events of this movie, and dates his death as 1247—though this version was apparently written in the 17th century, so long after any supposed events. And the movie makes no further reference to the date or the events of the era that I noticed.]

OK but the acting is fantastic. Hugh Jackman is great, Jodie Comer is radiant, Faith Delaney as Little Margaret, Little John’s daughter, steals the show so far as I am concerned. Bill Skarsgård looks ripped from the TV show Vikings. I have no complaints about the cast and acting, I just think the script leaves something to be desired.

Still, if you are interested in things medieval and don’t mind some serious mayhem with weaponry, it’s worth watching, for the landscapes and cinematography and Hugh Jackman’s beard and hair, if nothing else :).

I wanted a medieval Unforgiven, but I think the film falls short of that. But at least it’s a real, gritty Robin Hood, not a Disney-fied version, as much fun as that might be.

P.s. The soundtrack is delightful, have a listen on your favorite streaming service.