What Michael Sarnoski has done with his first 3 features is almost at Ryan Coogler levels of greatness. He made a movie about Nic Cage and his pet Pig one of the most pensive studies of the food industry out there. Then he took on a Quiet Place Prequel with none of the original cast, and made that thing way better than it had any right to be. And now, with The Death of Robin Hood, Sarnoski is 3 for 3 on his ambition and execution. I happily claim him as one of my guys, yet another Midwesterner (Milwaukee) doing justice to “flyover country.”
The Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman) we meet before his Death (supposedly) is not the one in the stories we all know. This is a vicious loner who only has Little John (Bill Skarsgard) and otherwise stays in the mountains so his enemies cannot find him. After a brutally won battle, Robin is injured badly. John takes him to a monastery on a small island, run by Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer) who supposedly has incredible healing powers to prevent the Death in the movie’s title.
Of his 3 films, The Death of Robin Hood is the hardest challenge for Sarnoski. There are countless, VERY famous adaptations of this story he has to compete against to try to stand out against. Fortunately, he leans into it with a great premise: an aging version of the character who’s not really the man in the stories. Great premise yes, but Sarnoski’s execution has to be even greater, breaking the tale and then rebuilding it again, piece by piece when we get to Sister Brigid’s island. The director does the impossible in the first 30 minutes; this Robin Hood is NOT the one spoken of in tales by his truly shocking but necessary actions in the world he’s created against him. And yet, the eerie clouded mountain cover and gorgeously lit battle sequences mean we aren’t grounded in reality: we’ve just transitioned into a darker, more r rated tale of some kind instead. On that monastery island, Robin’s recovery is where Sarnoski builds up what tale we’ve actually become a part of. It’s not really a Bryan Adams/Kevin Costner joint. It’s slower, but if you’re mystically drawn in like I was, it can be as compelling as swash buckling Nottingham battles but instead through the personal, intimate battles of an old man with a lot of personal demons.
Hugh Jackman has done something like this before. I wasn’t blindsided here like Logan did to me, but it was nice to return to this version of the actor we don’t see often enough. When Jackman digs deep, he can really summon special stuff like he does with old Robin Hood, experiencing multiple deaths and rebirths in this version of his tale. Jodie Comer is Jackman’s opposite, a warm welcoming individual with her own demons that she controls for the sake of bettering others. It’s commanding in a different way, but elevates the story with her presence. There’s not a lot of supporting players, but they came prepared to work and deliver. I particularly loved Murray Bartlett’s man in recovery a few months ahead of Robin in his own journey. Finally, Noah Jupe and Faith Delaney give us two sides of the generational coin. Jupe is trapped in a cycle of violence unsure he wants to break it, while Delaney is forced against her will into this world, trying to not succumb to it. Each character gives something rich to the greater tale Sarnoski is weaving, painting a different tale than classic Robin Hood but one worthwhile in different ways than we might have expected at the outset.
I can’t wait to see how much bigger Sarnoski can get. He and Goran Stolevski are in a race for me to see who will be the first to make a 5 star masterpiece. Both have gotten very close, and it only feels like a matter of time before they get there. I will welcome you both to the mountaintop, with a hug and some deep dish pizza instead of Robin Hood’s bludgeon and a severed hand like this Robin would provide.