In the late-fourteenth century, Great Britain dealt with the Peasant’s Revolt, changing the course of their history going forward and is taught in their schools to this day. On the heels of The Plague, the “commoners” of the Empire dealt with their loss alongside insane taxes, oppression, and even a level of indentured servitude that had them barely surviving. Director Paul Greengrass (responsible for everything from the Bourne franchise to United 93 and Captain Phillips) decided to tell its story during the pandemic (especially given what the world was dealing with at the time) and came up with a way to tell that tale with some artistic license with The Uprising.
This centers around the character known as “Ploughman” (Andrew Garfield), who is barely making ends meet on his plot of land after losing his family to The Plague. When the king’s council decides to raise taxes instead of creating revenue elsewhere, the people of his village revolt, sparking a nationwide march on London to confront King Richard II (Wood Norman from The Electric State) to voice their grievances while the aristocracy fights to hold on the power they have while grasping for more.
At two hours and seven minutes, it could be assumed that there is a lot of filler in The Uprising, but nothing could be further from the truth. This film hits the ground running and goes non-stop, with only a quick breather about seventy-five percent of the way through for less than ten minutes and then goes back full throttle until the credits roll. (This is NOT an exaggeration.) Even the march itself has moments of tension and anticipation as the peasant army grows, and while this version doesn’t really deal with what has to have been a power struggle in leadership as they approach London, the thought of where the story goes next more than makes up for it. The choice by Greengrass and cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth to shoot a ton of this footage with handheld cameras adds a level of chaos to an already frenzied story that borders on voyeurism, putting the audience in the thick of the action and even over the shoulders of characters in conversation at the perfect times across the board.
And then we have Andrew Garfield.
I am not afraid to say that he may be one of the most underrated actors of our time. Playing a superhero tends to do that to an actor, but he has come out the other side of that era of his career in the most amazing of ways. His Ploughman is shown with a balance of rage and sadness that is palpable and worthy of recognition, surrounded by a cast of fantastic performance highlighted by Shogun’s Cosmo Jarvis as former soldier Wat Tyler, Jamie Bell as wrongly disgraced priest John Ball and Thomasin McKenzie as rebel with a chip Alyce. And that is just the tip of the iceberg with Jonny Lee Miller, Sky Yang, and another outstanding performance in Wood Norman, who plays the boy king in a manner that is both layered and unexpected as this story unfolds.
2025 just keeps getting better with The Uprising, and for a non-horror film produced by Blumhouse it’s one of their best. This film is simply breathtaking and demands to be seen on the big screen, so don’t waste any time!