written by: Paul Greengrass
produced by: Jason Blum, Paul Greengrass, Gregory Goodman, Joanna Kaye, Joe Neurauter & Lars Sylvest
directed by: Paul Greengrass
rated: R (for violent/bloody images) 
runtime: 128 min.
U.S. release date: September 11, 2026

I bet many had no idea that Oscar-nominated English director Peter Greengrass helmed a movie that came out last year (“The Lost Bus”), nor do they realize Oscar-nominated actor Andrew Garfield released a movie (“The Magic Faraway Tree”) last month, both adaptations of books. The former came out last fall on Apple TV+ and earned an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects, while the latter was a charming fantasy adventure that didn’t get a fair chance in theaters. While Greengrass is best known for directing three Jason Bourne movies, his most compelling films have been based on real events, such as 2002’s “Bloody Sunday” and 2006’s “United 93”. Garfield has played his share of real-life characters, from Eduardo Saverin to Jim Bakker. It’s interesting to see them come together for “The Uprising,” a period piece loosely based on real events. Since Greengrass has long explored everyday people coming together in acts of heroism, a dramatization of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 in England plays to his proclivities.

Even more interesting is how familiar the story’s setting feels. A plague known as the Black Death has become a pandemic, ravaging all of medieval England. In the wake of it all, grief, trauma, and uncertainty are commonplace amongst the survivors, many of whom have developed an overall distrust of all authorities. Shifts in the climate have made it harder for the populace to live comfortably, and increased natural disasters have further thinned the margins. The stagnation of wages has prevented already struggling workers from building a future for themselves and their families. At the same time, a costly war with France has led to crushing taxation of ordinary citizens, who spend their lives working land they’ll never have a chance to own and can now barely afford to make ends meet. This economic upheaval has led to an arbitrary “forever war” that is hemorrhaging money from the state coffers.

A palpable disconnect and neglect between those who’ve suffered losses and the Crown has created understandable conditions for rebellion to rise. Richard II’s council (an effective Woody Norman), made up of old white men, makes decisions because the 14-year-old King of England is far too inexperienced and often crippled by nightmares of unruly mobs invading his kingdom. Determining that taxing the Church or the merchant class is politically untenable, the Council looks to the peasantry.

Historically, Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis, “Warfare“) famously led this rebellion, but in Greengrass’s film, he’s a supporting character to an anonymous farmer known only as Ploughman (Garfield). At one point, he gives himself this name, telling another character, “I am what I do,” as a brief introduction. The withdrawn and destitute character has nothing but his field to tend to, which is where his wife and two children were buried seven years ago.

When we meet him, he arrives in his nearby village to find a tax collector (Sam Chapman) from London and royal enforcers have set up shop. As they aggressively enforce tax hikes around him, Ploughman is told he has to pay death taxes again on his family since he lacks proper documentation to show he’s already paid. Annoyed by the callous demand, Plowman reaches his breaking point when he sees local young women being checked for signs of puberty so the tax collector can decide whether they, too, should be considered adults for tax purposes. In an act of defiance and violence, he lashes out against the tax collector and winds up killing an enforcer. This first uprising prompts other peasants to join the Ploughman, who spares a member of the king’s ruling council and sends him back to London to report what happened. Probably not the best idea, but this is a movie where many characters act and lead with their emotions.

Ploughman’s actions also gain the attention of like-minded would-be liberators. One is the aforementioned Tyler, a former soldier who served under the king’s late father; another is John Ball (Jamie Bell), an enigmatic priest whose egalitarian views the Church branded heretical and who was imprisoned before the rebels freed him. While Ball’s talents lie in inspiring large gatherings to join the growing rebellion, Plowman’s grief and Tyler’s rage become the two major factors that shape the revolt. Their main goal is to march to London and present the king with a petition of demands, unreasonably certain he will accept and fairly acknowledge their pleas.

None of this sits well with the manipulative counsel, who whisper their own agenda into the prepubescent king’s ear, as his feckless mother, Joan of Kent (Katherine Waterston), looks on helplessly. Greedy court treasurer, Sir Robert Hales (a sniveling Tom Hollander), pushes the boy king to eliminate unrest and return financial and physical terror to the kingdom. There’s also the Bishop of London, Simon Sudbury (Stephen Dillane), who cares more about his position of power than emulating Christ, and William Walworth (a pornstached Jonny Lee Miller), the ruthless Mayor of London, who is eager to wipe out the rebellion with the financial support of the Crown.

Greengrass focuses on a visceral aesthetic in “The Uprising,” tracking the Ploughman’s actions as they spark a revolution and bring locals out to reject royal order. It’s a dour-looking film, with grimy and muddy sets outside the austere castle walls, all under a permanent gray overcast. Cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth (who lensed Greengrass’s “22 July” in 2018) uses the director’s trademark handheld shaky-cam technique, which doesn’t really serve the story here. If anything, it draws too much attention to itself, and the sound design often drowns out dialogue that is already delivered with thick accents. Together, this creates a confounding viewing experience at times.

Greengrass delivers excitement in small doses, primarily investing in lengthy scenes of gathering and manipulation, especially when the council works to prevent any contact with the leader. Most of “The Uprising” involves negotiations and organization, and Greengrass often struggles to balance the epic he wants to make with the lukewarm play he’s written. His screenplay doesn’t give Garfield’s protagonist much dimension, and leaving the character unnamed adds to the missing characterization. Greengrass also includes Alyce (a wasted Thomasin McKenzie), a supporting character that is designed to project some kind of attraction toward Garfield, which feels unnecessary and unexplored. On that note, Norman’s Richard II takes a third-act character turn that doesn’t feel as surprising as it does unearned.

And there’s Robin Hood. If you’re aware of the folk legend, you can probably see where Greengrass is going with this story. Much of his story is a competent, straightforward recreation of a landmark historical event, with the parallels to today’s world clearly intact, but the script stops just short of hitting audiences over the head too hard. That is…until it goes into full-on “Robin Hood” mode.

It seems tonally odd for Greengrass to go for a more Hollywood ending here, especially in a movie that is more focused on giving the period a verite style. In real life, the Peasants’ Revolt didn’t succeed, and King Richard II feigned interest in meeting the rebels’ demands, then brutally crushed their efforts. There are frenzied scenes of the peasants storming London, capturing the council members and publicly beheading them. Through it all, Garfield’s Ploughman is repulsed by what he sees, just as many of us felt when we witnessed what transpired in D.C. on January 6th. Having Greengrass end “The Uprising” with an “origin moment” as Garfield turns into one of literature’s great populist superheroes.

Granted, the movie never explicitly uses the famous name, but when the final sequence shows Garfield covering his muddy face with green fabric and leading a band of forest-dwellers to rob the king with bows and arrows, it’s not only obvious, but also has an eye-rolling rip-cord effect. It feels like an end-credit scene, and even then it would feel forced. Maybe Greengrass and company wanted viewers to leave feeling more riled up than hopeless, like the peasants did. This darker version of the character doesn’t go as hard as Hugh Jackman does in “The Death of Robin Hood“, released this past June. That movie wasn’t well received, and it had the character in the title, so it’s probably a good thing Focus Features didn’t officially call the film “The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood”. But they’ll probably make that change once it’s released on physical media.

There’s a lot of potential to “The Uprising,” but it doesn’t deliver much in the way of fiery execution, as the start/stop pacing, focusing on drama, breaks up the fervor of a physical uprising. Greengrass is straightforward in his points about history and plays into the formation of folklore, but the whole affair lacks a consistent air of engagement.

RATING: **1/2