Michael Sarnoski is three for three. The director who gave us the quietly devastating Pig and the tense, cerebral A Quiet Place: Day One returns with The Death of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman. It’s probably his most ambitious film yet, and arguably his most uncompromising. It is bleak, brutal, and beautiful in equal measure, and strips one of history’s most beloved legends down to his rawest, most human bones. It doesn’t always land the way it should, but when it does, it hits hard.
Forget the green tights, the merry men, and the triumphant heroics. Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood is a grim, somber, and melancholic tragedy that challenges your image of the English legend. This is a film soaked in mud, regret, and moral complexity — a deconstruction that asks what happens when the myth confronts the man, and the man is running out of time.
The film opens with a first act that catches you completely off guard. It is brutal, visceral, and shockingly violent. We get an action-heavy gut punch that establishes the film’s unforgiving world with tremendous confidence. Sarnoski directs these sequences with raw intensity, and the exceptional cinematography creates a world far removed from any traditional Robin Hood adaptation. The production design, costume design, makeup, and editing are all top-notch, immersing you entirely in a medieval England that feels genuinely dangerous and lived-in.
At the centre of it all is Hugh Jackman, delivering what is unquestionably one of his career-best performances. Weathered, rugged, and radiating a gravitas that only comes from a performer operating at full capacity, Jackman carries the film’s emotional and physical weight with remarkable commitment. He plays Robin Hood as a flawed, mortal man choosing how to face his inevitable end. Sarnoski makes you hate the character before slowly, poignantly revealing a path toward redemption.
Bill Skarsgård is genuinely convincing as Little John, and every scene he occupies crackles with an energy that leaves you wanting considerably more of him. Jodie Comer is solid but ultimately underutilized — less a fault of her performance, which she handles with characteristic ease, and more a failing of how her character is written on the page.
Once the ferocious momentum of the first act subsides, The Death of Robin Hood transitions into a somber character study that, while admirable in intent, loses considerable steam in its second act. The narrative burden becomes almost entirely Jackman’s to carry, and while he does so with his best efforts, the screenplay doesn’t always provide him enough to work with. It grows heavy and slow, and the spark that might have elevated this into a genuine masterpiece never quite ignites.
The film is rich with poignant introspection and a heartfelt exploration of redemption, and the screenplay is often genuinely moving. But it is missing the emotional gut punches and intense sequences that would have made the second half as impactful as the first. The climax delivers and earns its weight, but the journey there tests patience at times. Sarnoski does have a history of delivering devastating knockout punches at the end, and does so here as well.
The Death of Robin Hood very much feels like a prestige autumn release, and its June placement feels tonally strange for a film this profound and unrelenting. Awards traction may be difficult to predict, and mainstream box office success also seems unlikely. But none of that diminishes what Sarnoski has achieved — a bold, refreshing, and genuinely unique reimagining of a timeless legend, anchored by a towering Hugh Jackman performance that deserves to be remembered come year’s end.
