1991 / 143 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

There are certain things that are weird to think about, in retrospect, things you can’t believe actually happened. If you think back on the way the world was in the early 90’s, then you’ll have a sense of what I’m talking about. In the early 90’s, the world was a completely different place. I’m not just talking about the whole “nobody outside a high school computer class actually had a computer” thing or the explosion of grunge music thing or the smoking on airplanes business. No, no. The two weirdest things to remember about the early 90’s are these: Guns and Roses was the biggest band on Earth and Kevin Costner was the biggest movie star in the universe. We’ve come a long way in the past sixteen or fifteen years.

Now, far as the Guns and Roses thing goes, I’d say we’ve made some tremendous cultural progress. Sure, Slash plays a mean guitar and their songs are actually pretty good when you get past Axl Rose’s voice…but getting past Axl’s voice is a tall order. I’ve never strangled a cat. I’ve never talked to anyone that has. But the sound it makes cannot be any worse than the sound made by Axl Rose’s vocal cords. It’s almost like the rest of Guns and Roses were TOO good. It was like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child of Mine” were sonic lightyears ahead of anything that any other band could do so a Hard Rock Committee forced them to take the world’s least listenable person as their lead singer. Guns and Roses didn’t want Axl on board. But the alternative was Death. Otherwise, the entire Hard Rock genre might have collapsed in on itself, and we all know that would have had terrifying ramifications on the space-time continuum. They truly had no choice but to be shackled with this bastard who sounded like supernova on the verge of collapse (that’s how supernovas sound, ask a scientist!) and had the worst hair in the history of rock (that shit was ratty, stringy…just plain bad). But they rocked so hard DESPITE the presence of Mr. Rose that they were STILL the biggest band in the universe. Makes you wonder what they could have done with a halfway decent vocalist (until you listen to Velvet Revolver, of course).

On the other hand, this was also the era of Costner. People like to take a shit on him nowadays, but those people are idiots. They’re the same idiots who bitch about “Titanic” in retrospect but still saw it three times in the theater. They are fickle douschebags whose opinions are of little or no value. But they are everywhere. They seem to dominate the mass media. And all they can do is decry and poo-poo the cinematic legacy of Kevin Costner, as though anyone cared or was still listening. Well I’m listening, dammit, and I don’t appreciate your crap. What these people don’t understand is that “Dances With Wolves” was a three hour movie that had no big battles (there are a couple action sequences, but they’re not really big enough to qualify as “battles”) or hobbits or flashy special effects and it STILL made all the money in late 1990. “Dances With Wolves” was one of those movies that was legitimately a phenomenon. It revived interest in Native Americans. It won all the major Oscars (and no, it did NOT steal Best Picture from “Goodfellas”, you can’t steal something that belongs to you). It made studios realize that three hour movies could turn a profit. (Where would “Braveheart” or “Lord of the Rings” be without it, I ask you? Still trying to get greenlit, that’s my guess.) And it made Kevin Costner into the biggest box office draw in the world.

In the wake of this success, Costner turned around and made two risky movies whose success solidified his box office clout (though, sadly, his career didn’t last much beyond them). First of all, he did “JFK” with Oliver Stone. “JFK” was nominated for Best Picture, made a respectable pile of money, and revived the controversy surrounding the JFK assassination. When you think about “JFK” in terms of what a blockbuster it was (I was anxious to see it and I was only 13) it’s kind of incredible. I won’t say that Costner was the only reason it did well, but he was a vital component of its success. People liked him. He seemed like a regular guy, yet women were drooling over him. That’s a lethal combination. Guys liked him because he played baseball and shot gangsters. Women liked him because he was frequently pants-less and he was charming as all hell. Plus, like Tom Hanks in the mid-90’s and Harrison Ford in the 80’s, the man chose great material. Costner had a hell of a run: “The Untouchables”, “Field of Dreams”, “Bull Durham”, “Dances With Wolves”, and “JFK”. These are great films, films that most normal Hollywood stars can only dream of. Costner chose good stories that people wanted to see, and people loved him for it.

They loved him so much, in fact, that nobody batted an eyelash that he played Robin Hood.

Robin Hood is British. He skulked around England about 900 years ago, robbing from the rich and giving back to the poor. And I’m sure he didn’t sound like a Midwestern corn farmer or a California surfer when he did. But that’s how Kevin’s Robin Hood sounds. It’s really quite amazing. Near the beginning of the movie, Costner attempts a hint of a British accent (a really subtle, barely discernible one) but then he abandons it about fifteen minutes in. And you know something? The story is so compelling, the atmosphere of the film is so rich and the villain is so good that it DOESN’T EVEN MATTER. Yup, that’s right. It doesn’t hurt the film at all. Not at all.

Those who bitch about Costner will not agree with that statement. They will say that it hampers this film, that it hamstrings the movie’s artistic integrity. And that would be a problem if this film actually HAD any artistic integrity. But it doesn’t. If this were “Schindler’s List” or even “Braveheart”, that would be a problem. If it were a movie with something important or vital to say, Costner’s lack of Britishness would be a major stumbling block. The film would crash and burn and nothing on Earth could revive it. But Costner’s lack of an accent barely registers. If anything, it actually helps the film.

I will explain.

You see, Robin Hood is an outsider. He’s been in a Turkish prison for the past five years, thanks to his involvement in the Crusades. He’s mad, he’s dirty and all he wants is to go home. When he gets home he finds that the same sort of shit he’s had to put up with for the past five years in Constantinople is now going on right at home. People are being oppressed, imprisoned, accused of satan worship and killed. It’s like the Scouring of the Shire part of the “Lord of the Rings” books, the part all the Costner-hating geeks complained was missing from the movies. Well, watch “Prince of Thieves”, geeks! Picture Costner as a hobbit. There. All better. At any rate, he comes home and it’s not home anymore. Some evil bastard (we’ll get to him in a minute) has ruined everything he once loved. It’s not even his country anymore. So the fact that he talks differently from them just adds to that dichotomy. He doesn’t belong here. This is not his beautiful country. Following this line of logic, at the end, once he’s vanquished evil and restored Good to his world, everyone should start talking just like him…but oh well.

Another reason Costner’s performance works is that he comes off as a genuine prick. When he messes with the Sheriff of Nottingham’s goons, you get the sense that he’s doing it just to show how cool he is. When the goons don’t immediately piss themselves after finding out Costner used to own this land, Kevin looks pissed and gets all bitchy. The bitchiness continues when he gets to his father’s castle. His father is dead, sure, and that’s a tough break. But does he really need to chew out a blind guy for not cutting down dad’s corpse? Even in the face of such emotion, that seems a tad harsh. Costner’s Robin Hood continues to act like King Swagger Cock for the majority of the film. He can’t believe Maid Marian doesn’t immediately want to bed him. He talks down to the peasants that have given him refuge. He even inspires them to revolt, even though they’ll probably all get killed, just so he can get things back to normal and start lording it over everyone again. Five years in Turkish prison have changed the guy…but not as much as you might think. When you get right down to it, Costner’s Robin Hood is still the same rich prick he was before the Crusades. He’s helping the common people, but that’s only a side benefit. Really, he’s just trying to get his land and gold back, and he’s using whoever he has to in order to get that done.

Either Costner really was a prick who thought the sun shone out of his ass…or this is a brilliant performance.

Fortunately, this film has Costner’s rich prick face off against an even bigger prick. Alan. Rickman. Rickman is a golden GOD in this film. Errol Flynn will always be the definitive Robin Hood; that’s not even a question. But it’s hard to remember any other Sheriff of Nottingham. Basil Rathbone was good in the 1938 version of this story…but Alan Rickman is the guy who, in fifty years time, will forever be identified with this role. Costner has no accent, so Rickman compensates for that fact by having a British accent that even deaf people can hear. I have never seen scenery chewed such infinite gusto. No wonder everyone thought Costner was sleepwalking through this movie. Even Jim Carrey would be forced off the margins of the screen by Rickman’s portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham. The guy is brilliant. He was understated and cool as Hans Gruber, bad-ass terrorist, in the first “Die Hard” movie. Here, he’s a man constantly on the verge of an aneurysm.

At the start of the film, however, he is unflappable and cool. And why shouldn’t he be? The king is gone and the Sheriff of Nottingham is the closest thing the country has to an authority figure. (I’ve never figured out how the country could go from King to Sheriff though. Was literally EVERY other nobleman out of town?) He has all the money, he can have anyone he doesn’t like killed and he gets any woman he wants. He’s got the world swinging from his nuts. In short, he’s got everything that we sense Robin Hood used to have. But instead of being satisfied with that (like Robin apparently was), the Sheriff (whose real name we never learn) wants more. He wants it all, baby, and he wants it now. The King is coming home soon, the party is almost over, so he’s got to grab everything he can while there’s still time…including the throne of England. When Robin Hood stumbles back into town, he’s still not worried. Another pansy nobleman comes home, no big deal. The Sheriff maintains his cool.

As it becomes painfully obvious that Robin isn’t just another effete British noble, however, Rickman starts to panic. He goes from cool to nervous to what can best be described as a full-on mental breakdown. If you watch Rickman’s performance and bear this in mind, his work is simply genius. And it’s hilarious. Rickman walks a fine line in his portrayal. If he played it just a little bit broader he could be in a Monty Python sketch. His eyes bug out, his nostrils flare to grand effect, his voice goes through strange new octaves…he’s so panicked at the thought of losing all the cool shit he’s got that he starts to re-experience puberty. Even near the end, when he gets control back for a few shining moments, he’s too far gone to really appreciate it. Costner’s Robin Hood has gotten under his skin and he’ll never be the same again.

Like the original “Batman”, this is an action movie where the action barely matters. It’s really a psychologically fucked up character study of two men that are like shadows of one another. Robin Hood is a man who once had the world on a string and wants to regain that power…but learns the value of freedom and respect for the lower class along the way. He’s like a millionaire who lost everything and has to live with bums. The Sheriff of Nottingham, on the other hand, is a guy born with nothing who gets it all in a really short span of time and gets addicted to it. He wants more, and he doesn’t care who he has to kill to get it…or keep it. He’s like a British version of Scarface in the Dark Ages. And, like Scarface, he simply refuses to go down. When Robin Hood finally corners him, you just expect Costner to roll right over him. On the contrary, the Sheriff fights tooth and nail, putting up one hell of a sword fight. Rickman would have completely owned Robin’s ass if Robin Hood hadn’t fought dirty. You can’t help but love this prick, even though you’re still rooting for Robin Hood (at least a little bit). The Sheriff is a bastard, but he’s so damned good at it. This is further proof of Rickman’s genius. We despise him, we’re rooting for his eventual downfall, but we can’t wait for him to show up on screen again. Even though he worships Satan and threatens the lives of children, we still sort of want him to win. (You want further evidence of this? In the DVD extended edition, all the added footage is of Rickman.)

Unlike the original “Batman”, however, the action sequences are better. The final forty-five minutes of this movie simply rock. You’ve got flaming arrows, hangings, daring rescues and escapes, people riding catapults, Celt attacks, zesty swordfights and people hurling through windows. In the last forty-five minutes, this movie shows you everything that a Robin Hood movie can be. Its pulse pounding, rip-roaring entertainment and it doesn’t even need fancy digital effects. It’s why this legend has endured so well, it’s just a damn good story.

Unfortunately, there are some slow moments getting to this primo stuff (and Morgan Freeman is largely wasted…he looks like even he is wondering what the hell his character iis doing here), but it scarcely matters. Thanks to Rickman’s artfully over-the-top performance and Costner’s believable outsider/asshole antics, this movie is never anything short of fascinating.

Unlike Axl Rose, Kevin Costner deserved to rule the world. This movie may not be the Best evidence of that, but it’s a good Exhibit C.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.