Watch the whole thing HERE!
CAST: Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Katherine Waterston. Written and directed by Paul Greengrass.
REVIEW: Gritty and kinetic, “The Uprising” is a story of struggle for class equality that gets medieval on its subject.
Set against the true events of the 1381 English Peasants’ Revolt in the aftermath of the Black Death, “The Uprising” wastes no time jumping in action. To fund a lavish lifestyle, feudal serfdom and endless wars King Richard II (Woody Norman), and his cabal of self-interested advisors, send tax collectors to the countryside to forcibly extract money from every person aged fifteen and above, a tax the farmers simply cannot afford.
“The taxes,” shouts heretical priest John Ball (Jamie Bell), “you ask too much!”
When the King’s men assault the local women and children, a farmer named Ploughman (Andrew Garfield) reaches his breaking point and fights back, sparking a bloody uprising led by Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) and Ploughman. Cobbling together an army of the oppressed from across the country, they stormed London, breached the Tower, and demanded justice from the King. “There will be no peace until we are free.”
A story of justice and treachery, “The Uprising” is not your typical historical drama. Heavy doses of grim mano-a-mano violence—so many beheadings—shot through director Paul Greengrass’s roaming, handheld camera give the film some frenetic forward motion, like a medieval video game.
The almost epic crowd scenes and the rampage through London are immersive—although the use of CGI to bulk up the mobs is noticeable and distracting—and captures the chaos of the large-scale battles but Greengrass’s in-your-face shooting style occasionally makes it hard to determine who’s smiting who.
As Ploughman, Andrew Garfield brings soulfulness and a haircut that seems too modern by about 600 years. His character is the instigator of the action, but he’s also a symbol of working-class resistance and as such carries much of the weight of the film’s political messaging. He’s up to the task, handing in a raw performance, tempered by rage and the grief he suffers in the wake of the loss of his wife and children during the plague, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that he’s a man out of time, too contemporary for the role.
“The Uprising” has none of the formalism of many other historical dramas. In the style of his Jason Bourne movies, Greengrass’s restless camera is always on the move, which brings immediacy to the action but threatens to overwhelm the film’s core study of class, tyranny and survival.
On the Saturday April 12, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet artist and musician Sean Ono Lennon. A new documentary called “One to One: John & Yoko,” is a look at New York City in the early 1970s through the actions of two of its most famous residents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Newly restored footage, with remastered audio overseen by Sean Ono Lennon, of John Lennon’s only full-length, post-Beatles concert is intercut with talk show appearance, home movies and news accounts to create a sense of time and place. In this conversation we talk about the film and how, for Sean, working on it is “almost like getting more time with my dad.”
Then, we’ll meet the creative team behind an intense new film called “Warfare.” Based on ex-Navy Seal Ray Mendoza’s real-life experiences during the Iraq War, “Warfare” is a harrowing portrait of modern warfare that sees a platoon of American Navy SEALs in battle with enemy combatants. On this show we meet co-directors Alex Garland and Rayn Mendoza and star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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SYNOPSIS: Based on ex-Navy Seal Ray Mendoza’s real-life experiences during the Iraq War, “Warfare, now playing in theatres, is a harrowing portrait of modern warfare that sees a platoon of American Navy SEALs in battle with enemy combatants.
CAST: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini. Directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland.
REVIEW: “Warfare” is not a movie you “enjoy.” It’s one you experience.
Created from the memories of the actual combatants, “Warfare” is a gut-wrenching recreation of the Navy SEALs who oversaw the movement of U.S. forces through insurgent territory in Iraq in 2006.
It’s a visceral slice-of-life-and-death that strips away all the pretence of war movies by highlighting the sacrifices made by the Seals. The up-close-and-personal combat sequences provide an interesting take on warfare. The battle scenes are visceral, “you-are-there” in nature, with visuals of dismembered limbs and carnage that would make Hieronymus Bosch turn his face away, but it is the portrait of the personal toll paid by the soldiers that resonates.
The first half hour is all about quiet, nervous expectation as the soldiers prepare for the onslaught to come. Once shots are exchanged, it becomes a visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told in real time.
A bomb blast leaves soldiers on fire, mutilated and screaming in agony. These scenes, which make up the majority of the film’s running time, are gorier than most horror films and left me jarred, unable to shake the intensity of the experience.
Am I glad I saw “Warfare”? Yes. Would I want to sit through it again? Hell no. It’s an antiwar film that very effectively makes its point by immersing the viewer in a world of violence. Not an easy watch, but it isn’t meant to be.
SYNOPSIS: Set in the 1950s, and based on a true story, “The Alto Knights” stars Robert De Niro in the double role of gangsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese and their battle to control the streets of New York City.
CAST: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, and Michael Rispoli. Directed by Barry Levinson.
REVIEW: A story of friendship and betrayal, “The Alto Knights” is the tale of gangsters Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, one a violent hothead, the other a cautious diplomat, both played by Robert De Niro.
Director Barry Levinson keeps De Niro busy, but this isn’t exactly “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” which saw Eddie Murphy play five of the Klump family members in the same scene. De Niro is the star X 2 of the show, the fourth wall-breaking narrator, and even appears as the de-aged Costello.
It’s a whole lotta De Niro, which his fans may enjoy, but you can’t help but think he’s breathing new life into two old characters.
His Frank Costello plays like “Casino’s” Sam “Ace” Rothstein with a few years more experience while his Vito Genovese feels like a riff on Joe Pesci “Goodfellas” role. It’s a fun gimmick, but De Niro’s double the fun approach doesn’t add much to the film overall.
De Niro differentiates the two characters with vocal inflections, and Vito usually wears a hat, but other than that and their temperaments, it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of who is who.
Written by Nicholas Pileggi, whose book “Wiseguy” was the basis for “Goodfellas,” it covers familiar ground. According to IMDB, the rivalry between Costello and Genovese, and the resulting busts at the famed The Apalachin mob boss meeting, have been part of no less than 22 other productions.
A deeper dive into their relationship as kids and ultimately, their Cain and Abel conflict—we are mostly told about the past through Costello’s expository narration—may have freshened things up, raised the stakes to and turned “The Alto Knights” into a human drama of power and betrayal rather than a retelling of a shop-worn tale.
“The Alto Knights” is a slick movie, with nice period details, but the shallow look at the relationships of the protagonists and a repetitive, drawn-out script blunts the power of the story.
