‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Review: Hugh Jackman Plays an Aging Outlaw Haunted by His Violent Past

Myths and the stories we tell are not always representative of what actually happened. Tales passed down orally through generations inevitably alter, reshape or distort whatever may have taken place. This was particularly true in the Middle Ages, when stories were transmitted almost exclusively by word of mouth. Robin Hood is one such case. The modern image of the character — the benevolent outlaw who “steals from the rich to give to the poor” — is a romantic myth constructed centuries later, with little connection to the more or less historically grounded figure found in the darker original ballads. Contrary to what dozens of films and legends would have us believe, Robin was not a nobleman fighting injustice on behalf of the poor. He was a dangerous, often brutal outlaw who stole from pretty much anyone and killed viciously when challenged. He may have performed the occasional act of kindness, but he was hardly the benefactor of impoverished peasants, the progressive Robin of Sherwood Forest.

The Death of Robin Hood breaks away from that myth in three distinct ways. The first is the one outlined above: Robin was far less hero than bandit and murderer. The second is right there in the title: this is not a story about his life, but about its final chapter, the period in which he begins to reflect on the things he has done and the destruction he has left in his wake. The third is formal. In the hands of Michael Sarnoski, director of Pig, this version of the story has little in common with the action-adventure mode that usually accompanies Robin Hood. Here, the myth is dismantled through the filmmaking itself. Robin Hood’s life — or, more accurately, his death — becomes a bitter, mournful and melancholy affair, closer in spirit to austere Scandinavian dramas or Soviet epic cinema than to any kind of high-octane adventure film.

Whatever Hugh Jackman brings to the role in terms of physical presence and star power, don’t expect this Robin Hood to be a swashbuckling comedy surrounded by his Merry Men. If you have seen Pig, you can probably imagine the tone. Sarnoski is deliberately heading in the opposite direction. His film is dense, dark and violent, with more in common with the movies of Robert Eggers — director of The Lighthouse and Nosferatu — than with a big-budget blockbuster designed to deliver maximum box-office impact. It takes only a moment to adjust to the proposition. Once the viewer enters its fog-shrouded world, accompanied by music and a rhythm closer to Andrei Tarkovsky than Michael Bay, it quickly becomes clear that we are in capable hands. Sarnoski knows exactly what he is doing. He understands that the story he wants to tell requires a decidedly somber tone, even in broad daylight, and he patiently invites the audience to follow him there. This is an A24 film, after all. Complaining that you didn’t see this coming is hardly an option.

The film opens with Robin (Jackman), now old and gray-haired, brutally dispatching a very young woman who has come to take revenge for the family members she claims he killed. There is no empathy or understanding here. One less enemy, dealt with in the most brutal way imaginable. From the outset, Robin himself makes clear to the young woman that the stories told about him have little to do with reality. His treatment of her makes that abundantly clear. He is not a hero, certainly. If anything, he has far more in common with a villain.

The first part of the film might suggest that it is heading toward a more conventional action story: within its first half-hour, there are at least three brutal confrontations, each leaving Robin increasingly battered. After reuniting with his old companion Little John (Bill Skarsgård, another connection to Eggers’ cinematic universe), who is now hiding under a false name, the two attempt to rescue John’s wife and daughter from the men who control their land. They manage to save the frightened little girl, but not her mother. Following a vicious confrontation with her killers worthy of Game of Thrones, John flees, leaving the badly wounded Robin behind at an isolated monastery.

There, he is taken in by the local prioress, Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), who attempts to treat his wounds. Most of the film unfolds in this small, secluded religious community, lost amid the misty English countryside. It is here that the relationship between Robin and Brigid gradually takes shape. A leper (Murray Bartlett) who is also there develops a bond with Robin, while other characters enter the story and challenge the apparent decision of this wounded antihero to abandon his life as a bandit and killer. He never gives his real name, calling himself Randolph instead, and does not want anyone to know who he really is. He cannot tell whether the people around him see him as a hero because of the legends surrounding his exploits, or know him — much closer to the truth — as a thief and murderer. And some of them probably came come looking for revenge.

Sarnoski settles into this rhythm and gradually transforms the film into a moral drama, an emotional and spiritual journey that has something in common with the one Christopher Nolan gave Odysseus in his adaptation of Homer: guilt, remorse and the search for redemption. In both cases, these themes feel like contemporary ideas transported into the distant past, imposed upon ancient stories by a modern culture — or, perhaps, by a modern way of understanding life and society. Robin questions his own cruelty, begins to understand the devastation he has left behind and seeks redemption before, as the title puts it, he departs this Earth.

Jackman’s aged incarnation of the character, stripped of much of his usual movie-star freshness, is an asset in itself. But the film also benefits from the muted tension surrounding its characters, its measured narrative tempo, the anguish that runs through them and even the landscape that alternates between enveloping fog and sudden bursts of light. This is a film about guilt and redemption, certainly, but also about the stories we tell, the fictions passed down from one generation to the next, and the epic narratives that turn messy, brutal and morally complicated events into heroic deeds.

According to Sarnoski’s film, Robin always understood the enormous distance between myth and reality. It was only at the very end of his life that he attempted, at least to some degree, to become the man the legend had invented.