ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES is a film starring Kevin Costner, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Rickman. The film was directed by Kevin Reynolds, written by Pen Densham and John Watson.
This morning before I went to the first showing of ROBIN HOOD I read a review of the film in the morning paper. The reviewer was pretty disappointed and reading the review so was I. A few hours later I was sitting the darkened auditorium and enjoying the hell out of myself. I have some reservations, mostly about Costner himself, but overall I can recommend ROBIN HOOD to anyone who enjoys action/adventure movies.
All the principals and most of the supporting players are obviously having a wonderful time. The exception, as I have indicated, is Kevin Costner. Now, I am a fan of Costner's, but I felt he was very uncomfortable with large parts of his role here. Often his speech was too flat, as if he didn't know how to read his lines, hampered by the most curious and unnecessary accent. Being an American actor, Costner, apparently, is not trained in doing accents, so he did not attempt to sustain even a stage-British accent, but instead compromised by broadening some vowels and dropping some r's. The effect is slightly silly, but most noticible only when he is slugging his way doggedly through set-piece speeches. In a tete-a-tete, on the other hand, with Mastrantonio, he speaks and sounds easy and natural, with richer inflections and a blessed reversion to his natural accent. I think, I'm afraid, that Costner should have limited himself to the role of producer for ROBIN HOOD and in the future to stick the purely American roles that I have loved him previously. (Lyndol, my best sounding board, however, says he had no problems with Costner as Robin Hood, so I expect as many viewers to say I'm too harsh as to say I'm too easy on our star.)
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, on the other hand, was simply perfect as the Lady Marian. She brought a strength and independence to the familiar character that I've never seen before (although I've never seen ROBIN AND MARIAN, so I'm prepared to be corrected here, as elsewhere). She's brave, intelligent, aggressive and assertive, a natural born leader herself. And she's an older Marian than the one's I'm used to, not a crone, but surely a mature woman. All these reasons make her excessive screaming in the climactic sword fight all the more unacceptable and irritating. This is certainly a Hollywood tradition (Basinger in BATMAN, or Hawn in BIRD ON A WIRE, par exemple) and maybe a dramaturgical problem as well (the third party has to have something to do while she's on "stage"), but I don't have to like it.
An unusual addition to the familiar cast of the Robin Hood legend is Azeem, the Moor, played by Morgan Freeman. I enjoyed Freeman's charaterization of Azeem enormously. In some ways, he was our spokesman, our eyes, the one who sees the barbarism of Merry Olde England and comments on it both in words and body language. Also, Freeman was subtly and hugely funny; his relationship to Robin was the occasion of several of the better jokes in the movie. And Freeman look marvelous, younger and in better shape than I've seen him in years. Some people are going to say that Azeem was added to the story as a token gesture to Costner's sense of political correctness, but I remember that wondeful Richard Greene Robin Hood TV series from the early 1950s in which one episode featured a Saracen dazzling the Merry Men with his superior technology and nobility, and another episode featured a Byzantine princess, who was even more exotic in that context of Sherwood Forest. Legends are always updated in their details by the storytellers, and the presence of Azeem in this version is both welcome and interesting, in my humble opinion.
And speaking of comic roles, I was totally unprepared for the hilarious reading Alan Rickman brought to his interpretation of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Rickman, of course, is famous nowdays as a major heavy, genius, psychopath, torturer (do see CLOSETLAND if you can). And here as the Sheriff, a role usually more buffoonish than satanic, he combines the psychopath with the comedian in way that was sinister, ridiculous, threatening, hilarious, and made all the more evil by an underlying childishness. Rickman is a brilliant actor, who has mastered the physical side of acting. The slightest gesture, the smallest movement of his eyelids communicate and communicate volumes about his character. Rickman is the true star of ROBIN HOOD and the real reason to see it.
(Another acting appearance I was also unprepared for comes in the form of a surprise and wonderful cameo at the very end of the movie. You will love it. But don't spoil for anyone else.)
There is an element of fantasy that has been added to the legend here, also, which I am of two minds about. The Sheriff keeps a witch in his castle, a witch who raised him, who advises him, who prognosticates successfully for him, and who even fights for him. It's not quite right, not quite wrong, and I'll be interested to hear how others react to it. Generally, I like magic and witches in my movies, and this witch is having a grand time living up to the traditions of her role. But is it really necessary in order to give some rhyme or reason to the Sheriff's personality?
The photography, the sets, and the location scenery are all wonderful, as they should be for $50 million. The action is decidely Spielbergian; the director Kevin Reynolds is a former protege of the master and he learned his lessons well. Unfortunately, he didn't have much control over the other Kevin; indeed, the gossip is that the two men were close friends going into the project and are no longer on speaking terms, thanks to Costner's interference. Costner, himself, has been quoted recently as saying that it isn't what he wanted it to be; he's complained that the relevance and meaning of the coy nude scene (using a body double, I hear) was lost on the cutting room floor -- Marian is supposed to see the scars on Robin's back and understand that he's grown during the Crusades. From other things Costner's been saying, I'd say he needs a good enema, but hey! what do I know about the pressures of being a superstar?
I miss Prince John, however. Making the Sheriff, a royal servant, into a major player in England's dynastic politics makes no sense historically and introduces more ridiculousness into the script than a boatload of Moors and witches. The script, by the way, is loaded with awkward locutions, stilted speeches only marginally made acceptable by the skill of the actors.
ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES, is not an unqualified success, but it has more enough strengths and will be talked about enough this summer that I can, without hesitation, recommend it to you, even at full ticket prices.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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