The Uprising review: 'Andrew Garfield grounds the action with righteous fury'
This reimagining of the Peasants’ Revolt allows director Paul Greengrass to play to his visceral visual strengths, writes Alistair Harkness
The Uprising (15): ★★★
Set in Plague-ravaged England, circa 1381, The Uprising finds Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass on rabble-rousing form with a historical tale of class warfare aimed squarely at our current world of extreme wealth inequality. Inspired by the Peasants' Revolt against boy-king Richard II's unjust rule, it stars Andrew Garfield as a farmer known only as Ploughman who can no-longer stomach the unfair system of taxation and serfdom that keeps the majority of the population in penury.
Having lost his wife and child to the Plague he lashes out at a local official for demanding additional taxes when he can’t prove his family are dead — a seditious act of violence that inspires other locals to join a growing band of rebels led by former soldier Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) and the heretic priest Jon Ball (Jamie Bell) as they march on London to demand their 14-year-old sovereign (Woody Norman) address the grievances of the people.
What follows plays to Greengrass’s visceral visual strengths as the chaotic centre of the movement fails to hold and the eruption of violence is complicated by the mob’s own prejudices. Here Garfield grounds the action with a righteous fury and there’s a sly turn from Katherine Waterston as King Richard's mother, Joan of Kent, who can see the bigger picture that her callow son cannot. Alas, traces of an earlier conception of the film that conflates the Peasants’ Revolt with a Robin Hood origins story remain in the ham-fisted finale, robbing it of some of its power.
The Uprising is in cinemas from 9 October
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