We don’t usually review movies twice at The Playlist. But then again, a director doesn’t usually cut a substantial chunk of his film after reactions from a festival premiere suggested it was too long, and debut the new version barely six weeks after the initial premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. So props to David Mackenzie for clearly taking the response to “Outlaw King” seriously — not least because the film is backed by Netflix, who, given the latitude they usually give their filmmakers, clearly would have had no problem with releasing whatever version Mackenzie preferred.
So the “Outlaw King” that opened TIFF last month is not the same one that premiered at the BFI London Film Festival today. It’s shrunk down from the137-minute version that drew a somewhat mixed response, to the more manageable, twenty-two-minutes shorter, sub-two hour take I saw this morning and that will hit Netflix next month. Now, what this piece isn’t is a comparison of the two different cuts — I wasn’t at TIFF and haven’t seen the longer one. But a second review seemed fair, and I had a rather more pleasant experience with the shorter take than Jason Bailey had when he (excellently) reviewed the more extended version.
The premise hasn’t changed. It’s 1305, and William Wallace’s rebellion against the English (the film essentially serves as a sequel to “Braveheart,” though the only time we see the hero of Mel Gibson’s film is as a head on a spike) is in its dying days, in part because Robert de Brus (James Cosmo) and his son, also Robert de Brus (Chris Pine, reunited here with his “Hell Or High Water” director) ultimately backed King Edward I (Stephen Dillane) in the conflict. As a reward, the younger Robert is married to the king’s goddaughter Elizabeth (Florence Pugh).
But soon after, Wallace is captured and executed, the elder Robert’s father dies, and the English crackdown on the Scottish people becomes too much for the young king to bear. A rebellion starts to brew and explodes properly after Robert kills a rival nobleman who threatens to reveal his plans to the English, making him the outlaw king of the film’s title. Edward’s son, also Edward (Billy Howle), is tasked with bringing the rebel’s head back to his father.
And that’s more or less it: this is not your film if you’re after the complexities of medieval Scottish politics, or even subtext relating to modern Scottish nationalism. A desire for freedom is a given, and we might as well be watching the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, or Jon Snow and the White Walkers. It’s pure action-adventure (with a dash of historical romance), and not exactly “Lawrence Of Arabia” in terms of depth.
This might sound like a negative, but I found the film’s simplicity oddly refreshing. There’s been a clarity and muscularity to Mackenzie’s work in the post-“Starred Up” second act of his career that very much carries over here — a sturdiness in construction and narrative. It’s quite old-fashioned and classical, but in a pleasing way, reminiscent of “Gunga Din” and particularly Kurosawa in its widescreen images and reveling in mud and rain.
It looks like a million dollars (or fifty), with Netflix clearly not having skimped on the budget, but Mackenzie also finds a visual approach that’s distinct from the post-“Gladiator” glut of historical epics of the last twenty years, with the Battle Of The Bastards from “Game of Thrones” a more obvious reference point to the film’s (numerous) war sequences.
Not many of the characters are especially well-rounded, but they’re played neatly by the performers on the whole. Pine, complete with a solid Scottish accent, continues to remind you that he’s one of the last old-school movie stars. He does a lot with a little, convincing you of Robert’s essential goodness when his back is against the wall (and boy, is his back against the wall: the script by Mackenzie, Bath Doran, and James MacInnes, with ‘additional writing’ by Mark Bomback and David Harrower, does a terrific job at stacking the odds against him to the point of hopelessness).
Rising star Howle, as the principal villain of the piece, gets the broadest part to play — his Prince Of Wales is only about half a point on the Rickman scale from canceling Christmas, all spittle and rage. But he’s memorably hissable, and in the film’s most interesting bit of subtext, feels oddly Trumpian — bad haircut, full of bile, desperate to please a father who never loved him. But it’s Florence Pugh, on a hell of a run after “Lady Macbeth” and “Little Drummer Girl,” who steals the movie — she brings a ton of intelligence and life to a part that, due to probably unavoidable story turns, mostly drops away in the second half, and her absence is sorely felt.
You can sort of see, even without the extra twenty minutes, where the film might have had issues before — it’s a little slack in the midsection still. But on the whole, it moves at a nifty pace in the new running time, and the technical work, in general, is impeccable (Ken Loach and “The Hurt Locker” DP Barry Ackroyd might do their best work ever here). And as with “Roma,” this is a Netflix movie that undoubtedly is best served on the big screen.
Those looking for a substantial meal or an Oscar contender are probably going to be left lacking. But so long as you’re prepared for some rousing medieval action and not all that much more, Mackenzie proves here he can work on a significant canvas with a film that must rank as one of Netflix’s more satisfying bigger-budget ventures to date. [B]
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