A lot of things were revolting in the 14th century: the bubonic plague, the Hundred Years War, the death of that “Braveheart” guy. But few things revolted harder than the English peasants. In 1381 they finally noticed everything sucked and they fought back against their rich and powerful oppressors, who incorrectly believed that if the serfs weren’t educated they couldn’t do the math. There are a lot more poor people than rich people, and if rich people don’t treat poor people with dignity, eventually there will be even fewer rich people — after a brief but noteworthy surge in the sale of executioner’s axes.
History repeats itself. At least, Paul Greengrass seems to hope so. The director of two of the good “Jason Bourne” movies (and one of the bad ones) is back with another politically-charged film with propulsive pacing, intense violence, and a few wonky choices holding it back. “The Uprising” isn’t a parable about modern day income disparity, it’s a parable about what might happen tomorrow if the 99% focused all our rage the people actually oppressing us. And it’s a good parable until it loses its conviction.
Andrew Garfield stars as Ploughman. He’s a man who ploughs. It’s not a complicated life, or at least it wouldn’t be if the aristocrats left him and his village alone. But England is broke, in more ways than one, and the powerful a-holes on King Richard II’s royal council — who make all the decisions because Richard (Woody Norman, “C’mon C’mon”) is still a child, and rarely leaves his room because he has scary nightmares — have to make a difficult choice. Option A is tax the wealthy, but in exchange they’d ask for representation in government, so that’s a non-starter.
Instead they choose Option B and tax the poor. They flood the country with armed goons who use violence to enforce heartless political policy, and sexually assault women under the guise of just checking their identity. When Ploughman says enough is enough, a simple act of defiance explodes into full rebellion, inspiring other villages to follow suit and eventually march en masse to London to take their grievances to the king.
Greengrass wastes zero time getting to the uprising part of “The Uprising,” shoving his story forward until it starts rolling downhill, picking up momentum and smashing everything in its path. There’s a thin line between breathtaking and exhausting and Greengrass sometimes trips over it, but nobody can say he doesn’t deliver the goods. There’s heroism and villainy. There are noble failures and victories that go terribly wrong. All of this while great actors like Garfield, Thomasin Mackenzie and Jamie Bell wrestle with their values and watch their best intentions degrade into harrowing mob violence.
It’s such a visceral kick to watch the proletariat rise up — “uprise,” if you will — and kick righteous ass that you might forget everything you learned in history class and believe this could all end well. I won’t spoil the story for anyone who hasn’t done homework in a few decades — or worse, lets AI do it for them — but suffice it to say there’s a bleak, nightmarish quality to “The Uprising” that gradually takes over and wrestles all this optimism to the ground.
It’s a tough, well-earned ending to an epic that tries to inspire contemporary change through historical parallels, but must by its very nature conclude with a cautionary lesson about how not to screw up next time. There are moments in the climax of “The Uprising” that rattle the nerves and break our hearts, and Greengrass’ commitment to the bit seems admirable and grimly satisfying.
But you know how some movies don’t get out while the getting is good? They just keep ending and ending, long after the perfect conclusion already presented itself, warping our perception of everything that came before and transforming an previously excellent narrative into a trite build-up to eye-rolling bullcrap?
If you don’t, watch “The Uprising.” It plays like a modern day rendition of F.W. Murnau’s “The Last Laugh,” a 1924 silent film with such a brutal conclusion the director was forced to tack on a Hollywood-esque ending so fake it was impossible to accept. In Murnau’s hands this falseness was uncomfortably effective, seemingly mocking his audience’s desire for a pat, happy solution to the film’s intensely miserable, realistic problems.
Paul Greengrass doesn’t go that far with “The Uprising.” His ending isn’t so unconvincing it makes a brand new, arguably brilliant point. It’s just unconvincing enough to sour the whole enterprise, and make us seem like we’ve been giving it too much credit.
It’s a shame because most of “The Uprising” is strong, sucking the audience into a disturbingly familiar era, and following a wave of hope — violently pursued, but hope nonetheless — to a solemn, powerful conclusion. It’s the second conclusion that robs this film of its vitality and gives the audience permission to reject Greengrass’s call to arms. “The Uprising” is such a tragic rug pull, sullying its hard-earned good will at the last possible minute, that it’s hard to appreciate anything that happened before the disappointment sank in. Now that’s revolting.
