Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: In “The Uprising,” a violent historical drama from director Paul Greengrass now playing in theatres, a rebellion rises against the tyranny of King Richard II’s and his onerous taxation.

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.