Scottish rebel tale comes up woeful on multiple levels
Set in early 14thcentury Scotland, “Outlaw King” could be described as a spinoff of “Braveheart.”
The latter, a stirring historical epic about Scottish rebel William Wallace, cleaned up at the 1996 Oscars, winning statuettes for picture, director (for Mel Gibson, who also starred in the film) and cinematography, among others.
In “Outlaw King,” the heroic character of Wallace, who is in hiding at the start, makes a brief appearance in the new film from Netflix.
The movie tells the story of Wallace’s contemporary, Robert the Bruce, played by Chris Pine beneath a saltand-pepper beard and an unflattering mullet.
Technically, only a part of Wallace shows up in “Outlaw King,” after he has been captured by the English and drawn and quartered for his disloyalty to the crown.
One arm and part of his chest serve as a grisly warning of more violence to come in the bloody — and bloody awful — historical epic that reunites Pine with his “Hell and High Water” director, David Mackenzie.
The tedious slog through the highland muck — released Friday on Netflix — should definitely win no Oscars, only groans and raspberries.
Even the muchbuzzed-about glimpse of a nude Pine, as his character emerges from a lake, doesn’t make this worth watching.
Robert picks up the mantle of rebellion against British monarch King Edward I (Stephen Dillane) and his cruel son (Billy Howle, in a ridiculous bowl haircut that makes Robert’s shag look good by comparison).
Reacting to oppressive taxation, the forced conscription of young Scottish men and the imprisonment of his young bride (a fiery Florence Pugh of “Lady Macbeth”), Robert takes up arms against England as he slowly recruits other Scottish noblemen to the cause of guerrilla warfare.
The film culminates in the 1307 Battle of Loudoun Hill — a turning point in the struggle for Scottish independence.
In the context of “Outlaw King,” the overlong, overly violent and chaotic scene delivers another form of liberation: ours, from a movie that is predictable, monotonous and poorly written.
When, for example, the English lay waste to an outlaw stronghold, we hear an English soldier shout, in one of many lines of painfully on-the-nose dialogue, “This is what you get for supporting Robert the Bruce!” Noted. Later, when we watch an ambush, we hear, just as unnecessarily, “It’s a trap!”
The screenplay — credited to Mackenzie, Bash Doran, James MacInnes, Mark Bomback and David Harrower — is ponderous and literal, like color commentary from a “Monday Night Football” personality who has been transferred from the sports desk to medieval warfare.
It’s almost refreshing when the wife of a Scottish rebel greets her husband, upon his return from the resistance, with this anachronistic-sounding greeting: “Where the ---- have you been?”
If nothing else, the question is good for an unexpected laugh.
That’s more than can be said for the rest of the historical drama, which is largely emotion-free.