William Tell (15)
Cast: Ellie Bamber, Jonathan Pryce, Jonah Hauer-King, Rafe Spall, Connor Swindells, Golshifteh Farahani, Claes Bang, Sir Ben KingsleyGenre: Action
Author(s): Nick Hamm
Director: Nick Hamm
Release Date: 17/01/2025
Running Time: 133mins
Country: UK/Switz/Ita
Year: 2024
King Albrecht dispatches sadistic Viceroy Gessler to extinguish pockets of rebellion in Switzerland, intimating that a potential union with his spirited niece, Princess Bertha, may be the reward for success. Anti-war hero William Tell proves a persistent thorn in the side of Gessler and the Austrian invaders. Tell protects a peasant, Baumgarten, from swift justice for murder and joins his wife Suna and son Walter in a fierce rebellion led by good friend Stauffacher.
LondonNet Film Review
William Tell (15) Film Review from LondonNet
Early 14th-century Swiss folk hero Wilhelm Tell has been repeatedly memorialised on the page and stage most notably in Friedrich Schiller’s play and Rossini’s subsequent opera Guillaume Tell, both of which fixate on the title character being forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head using a crossbow. Writer-director Nick Hamm’s sweeping film version opens in 1307 with the striking image of a freshly plucked apple trembling atop the head of young Walter Tell (Tobias Jowett) as his marksman father, William (Claes Bang), prepares to shoot the fruit clean off the boy’s noggin from 100 yards…
Failure or refusal to fire will render the title character childless, success will spare the lives of the close-knit Tell clan at the hands of bloodthirsty Austrian interlopers. Before the predestined miracle shot, Hamm’s script rewinds three days to trace tragic events that preface this demonstration of aerodynamic excellence. For the next two hours, we gallop between an array of characters whose fortunes collide on the battlefields of Switzerland, repelling soldiers loyal to Sir Ben Kingsley’s elaborately eye-patched Austrian tyrant.
Bang’s war-weary and dour embodiment of the title character is persistently at odds with the rollicking, old-fashioned yarn that Hamm and his creative team clearly aspire to make. While horseback riders charge into briskly choreographed battle sequences and Connor Swindells’ lip-smackingly boo-hiss antagonist sinks his teeth into every inch of scenery, Bang solemnly professes resilience (“We learn our lessons in failure”). The disconnect between the stoic and gloomy title character and other facets of this mud-spattered action adventure is distracting.
In flashback, we witness King Albrecht (Kingsley) dispatch sadistic Viceroy Gessler (Swindells) to extinguish pockets of rebellion in Switzerland, intimating that a potential union with his spirited niece, Princess Bertha (Ellie Bamber), may be the reward for success. She is nauseated by the prospect of sharing a marital bed with a chauvinistic brute. Anti-war hero William (Bang) proves a persistent thorn in the side of Gessler and the Austrian invaders.
Tell protects a peasant, Baumgarten (Sam Keeley), from swift justice for murder and joins his wife Suna (Golshifteh Farahani) and son Walter (Jowett) in the fierce rebellion led by good friend Stauffacher (Rafe Spall), holy man Furst (Amar Chadha-Patel) and Bertha’s secret Swiss paramour, Prince Rudenz (Jonah Hauer-King).
William Tell is an impressively staged throwback to gung-ho historical romps of yore, punctuated by protracted battle sequences accomplished using practical and digital effects. Bang’s sombre freedom fighter is a square peg forcefully hammered into the round hole of Hamm’s expansive vision, miraculously rousing the downtrodden masses into a chest-beating uproar of steely defiance. Swindells’ lascivious, snarling villainy is far more compelling. By the blood-soaked final stretch, I was rooting with every fibre for his spectacular downfall rather than William’s hard-fought victory.
– Sarah Lee
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