Movie Review: Robin Hood (2010)

A medieval drama and romance, Robin Hood creates an epic backstory for the legendary outlaw.

The year is 1199, and Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is an archer in the army of Richard The Lionheart (Danny Huston), as England's King fights his way back home from the crusades. But Richard is felled by an arrow at a battle in France, and his weakling brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) ascends to the throne. Robin impersonates the dead knight Sir Robert Loxley and along with a small group of men they make it back to England.

Meanwhile John is being undermined by his double-crossing friend Godfrey (Mark Strong), who is really working for France's King Philip to weaken England and enable an invasion. In Nottingham Robin meets and falls in love with Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett), while her father, the elderly and blind Walter (Max von Sydow), helps Robin understand his lineage. 

John's extreme taxation policies and Godfrey's raids on fellow Englishmen push the country towards civil war and serve Philip's agenda. Robin teams up with Lionheart loyalist William Marshal (William Hurt) to try and avert disaster.

Running a luxurious 140 minutes with content to match, Robin Hood is an engrossing drama, mixing historical factoids with plenty of rambunctious fiction. Director Ridley Scott re-teams with his Gladiator star Russell Crowe, and although the results are not quite as spectacular, this is still a finely crafted tale of swords, bows, and arrows, rich with story lines, court intrigue, memorable characters and no shortage of large-scale bone-crunching battles.

The Brian Helgeland screenplay steers well clear of the frivolity, simplistic heroics and light-heartedness associated with previous cinematic Robin Hood versions. This is a mud-splattered and grim outing, levity limited to a couple of brief dialogue exchanges, the merry men pushed well into the background. In search of a wider audience Scott avoids blood and gore visuals, but this adventure would have benefited from more realistic representations of the era's brutality.

Crowe's dour Robin suits the England-in-crisis surroundings. Untethered from any clan, he is haunted by a lost father and too many battles on the way to and from Jerusalem. The supporting cast is brimming with talent, von Sydow, Isaac, Hurt and Strong joined by Matthew Macfadyen as the Sheriff of Nottingham (here a relatively minor character), Léa Seydoux as Isabella (Prince John's ambitious lover) and Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitaine (his concerned mother).

The narrative weakness resides in Robin's relatively limited influence on events around him. For the most part he is on the edge of the major plot points, first with Richard the Lionheart's army then back in England where John, Godfrey and Marshal are driving the agenda. Even in the quieter moments at the Loxley estate, Robin's surroundings and fate are defined by Walter's wisdom and Marion gradually learning to love him.

Robin's personality does emerge on a few occasions, speaking truth to power (and paying for it) when invited to do so by Lionheart, recognizing the opportunity to impersonate a knight as a ticket home, and then helping Marion's fledgling estate avert starvation by plotting his first steal-from-the-rich escapade. 

Now provided with a pre-banditry history of hostility and hurt, Robin Hood emerges as a more hardened legend.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Miss Sloane (2016)

A spirited political thriller, Miss Sloane boasts a phenomenal Jessica Chastain performance and a rewarding plot.

In Washington DC, high-powered lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane (Chastain) is dragged in front of a congressional hearing presided over by Senator Sperling (John Lithgow) investigating allegations of unlawful influence peddling. In flashback, the events of the prior three months are revealed. Sloane is the star lobbyist at the firm of Cole Kravitz & Waterman managed by George Dupont (Sam Waterston), currently working for Indonesian interests to oppose a proposed palm oil tax bill.

She refuses an assignment by the gun lobby, represented by Bill Sanford (Chuck Shamata), to oppose a pending gun control bill. Instead, she defects to the smaller firm of Peterson Wyatt, run by Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), to lobby for the legislation and takes half her team with her, although loyal researcher Jane Molloy (Alison Pill) refuses to join the exodus. Despite being massively outspent, Sloane's team make progress in securing congressional votes. Team member Esme Manucharian (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), herself a victim of gun violence, emerges as an eloquent spokesperson. In desperation, Dupont and Sanford launch a smear campaign targeting Sloane's reputation.

Directed by John Madden, Miss Sloane is an electrifying talkfest. Thanks to a gripping Jonathan Perera script, this is a remarkably taut story centred on a captivating character who redefines what it means to be highly-strung. The 132 minutes of drama whiz by effortlessly, Madden building up an irresistible head of steam with a classic David versus Goliath battle for control of the soul of Congress over one of the most heated issues in American politics.

Elizabeth Sloane is one of the most compelling women to command a movie. Addicted to psychotic drugs that keep her awake, she works 16 hours a day, thinks and talks twice as fast as everyone else, and runs laps around her opponents. She also does not hesitate to use and hurt people close to her, abuses the trust of others, and leads a lonely life that includes hiring male prostitutes to emotionlessly satisfy her sexual desires. Ironically, her latest gigolo Forde (Jake Lacy) gets closest to cajoling personal thoughts out of her overactive mind. Chastain gives the performance of her life, and is never better than when fine cracks finally start to appear in Sloane's seemingly impenetrable armour.

And Perera surrounds Sloane with plenty of worthwhile allies and enemies. Esme Manucharian blossoms from behind-the-desk researcher to media star under Sloane's tutelage, but the master lobbyist still has other plans for her young protégé. Rodolfo Schmidt thinks he knows what he is doing when he hires Sloane, but is soon barely hanging on as she rumbles through his firm like a tornado. And Jane Molloy, who stays at the slick firm of Cole Kravitz & Waterman to battle against the gun control bill, finally has a chance to emerge from Sloane's shadow and create her own legacy.

Multiple story lines are nurtured, developed and brought together in the film's final third. The proposed tax on Indonesia palm oil, the gun control bill, the campaign to sully Sloane's reputation, the bitter battle between firms, and Sloane's own crystallizing view of her personal morality come together in a stunning climax. Miss Sloane plays a high stakes game in the unforgiving political arena, where both the strategic maneuvering and the price to be paid are spectacular.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.