No More Merry Men: Hugh Jackman Is Superb in the Gritty, Haunting The Death of Robin Hood

Rating: ★★★★☆

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett

Running Time: 122 minutes

Let’s be honest: we’ve seen the Robin Hood story done to death. We all know the drill—green tights, cheeky grins, splitting arrows in two, and robbing the rich to give to the poor. It’s been done every which way, from Errol Flynn right down to Disney’s whistling fox. So when you hear someone’s making another one, the natural reaction is an eye-roll.

Enter Michael Sarnoski.

If you saw Pig, you already know Sarnoski doesn't do predictable. With The Death of Robin Hood, he takes the legend, throws it in a meat grinder, and leaves us with something raw, dirty, and surprisingly moving. This isn’t an adventure romp. It’s a gritty, stripped-back look at what happens when a violent man grows old, while the rest of the world turns his bloody past into a cosy campfire bedtime story.

In Sarnoski’s original script, Robin wasn’t a socialist hero handing out gold coins to smiling peasants. He was a vicious thug who butchered, stole, and left behind a mountain of corpses. By the time we meet him in 1247, he’s an exhausted, feral old man living like a hermit, constantly looking over his shoulder because the children of the men he killed decades ago are now grown up and hunting him down. After getting torn apart in a brutal fight alongside Little John (a barely recognisable, bruised Bill Skarsgård), a dying Robin gets dragged to a remote abbey. Enter Sister Brigid, played by Jodie Comer, who gets the thankless job of nursing this wrecked, bitter man while forcing him to face up to who he really was.

It’s an incredible spin on the myth. Sarnoski isn't interested in making Robin cool or heroic; he wants to know why we love turning killers into legends. And the cast he’s got to pull this off is just brilliant.

Hugh Jackman is simply phenomenal here. Anyone expecting the slick movie-star charm or the snarling comic-book fury of Wolverine will be completely caught off guard. Jackman plays Robin like a beaten dog that just wants to lay down and die. He’s hobbling around with a broken body, raspy voice, and eyes full of pure dread. It’s easily one of the best, most vulnerable things he’s ever done on screen since 2017's Logan.

Then you’ve got Jodie Comer, who matches him stride for stride. She doesn’t play Sister Brigid like some gentle, saintly nun who pats his head and forgives him. She’s sharp, tough, and won’t let Robin wallow in self-pity. Their scenes together are the absolute beating heart of the movie—just two powerhouses bouncing off each other in dimly lit stone rooms, arguing about guilt, faith, and whether a monster can ever actually be redeemed.

Visually, the film looks gorgeous, but not in a glossy Hollywood postcard way. It looks cold, wet, and ancient. Sarnoski shot a huge chunk of this in Ireland, and the locations do an unreal amount of heavy lifting. The wide shots of the Mourne Mountains are stunning—vast, misty, slate-grey hills that make Robin look completely tiny and lost in a brutal landscape. And then there’s the Rock of Cashel, standing in for the priory. Its massive limestone ruins and towering stone arches feel heavy and suffocating, looming over Robin like the weight of his own conscience. You can practically feel the damp chill coming off the walls and smell the turf smoke in the air.

If the film has a flaw, it’s that it takes its sweet time in the middle. After a blisteringly intense, bloody opening act, things slow right down to a crawl in the priory. A couple of the conversations between Jackman and Comer feel like they’re retreading the same emotional ground, and you might find yourself wishing the pacing had a bit more punch during the second hour.

Still, that slow-burn approach pays off massively by the end. Sarnoski doesn't bother with a giant, CGI-heavy final battle or some rousing speech. The ending is quiet, heartbreaking, and hits like a ton of bricks. I wept.

The Death of Robin Hood definitely isn’t the Friday-night crowd-pleaser you put on for some light fun. But if you're up for a fresh, bleak, and beautifully made drama with top-tier performances, it’s well worth the watch. Sarnoski has done something rare here: he’s managed to make one of history’s most tired stories feel completely brand new.