Nottingham: A Revisionist Film About Robin Hood and the Sherriff

Film director Ridley Scott is using the legend of Robin Hood as the source for an upcoming film, Nottingham, which will star Russell Crowe as the Sherriff of Nottingham. Scott is going to approach the iconic story with an interesting twist.

The Sherriff, in this version of the story, is the good guy. Robin Hood is the villain, little more than a terrorist really. Both of them are in love with Maid Marion.

One can see interesting possibilities. It looks like the Sherriff is a well meaning, harried law enforcement agent just trying to keep the King's peace and if Robin Hood is a vicious little thug, robbing from everybody and giving to himself no doubt. Marion is just another source of conflict between the two, the better to make things personal.

Robin Hood has been an iconic movie hero since the late 1930s when Errol Flynn played him as a stalwart do-gooder in tights with a host of similar types giving the Sherriff, Prince John (Claude Raines), and especially Guy of Gisbourne (played by the wonderful Basil Rathbone) headaches.

While Robin has been on the large screen and small for decades, more recent depictions include that of Kevin Costner as a multicultural Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, along with Morgan Freeman as an Arab. It was heavy with politically correct messages, but it had enough action to allow one to ignore all that if one wanted.

The most interesting of the recent Robin Hoods was that played first by Michael Praed and then by Jason Connery (son of the slightly more famous Sean Connery) in the TV series Robin of Sherwood. This version has Robin and his Merry Men worshiping forest gods, which apparently all English peasants were doing when they were not forced to attend the Norman Lord's church. Richard the Lion Heart, usually a good guy savior, is depicted as a blood crazy nut by John Rhys Davis. Robin of Sherwood also had the best Sherriff of Nottingham ever, in my humble opinion, played with scenery chewing panache by Nickolas Grace.

Speaking of Sean Connery, who can forget his turn as a middle aged burnt out Robin Hood in Robin and Marion, along with the forever beautiful Audrey Hepburn as Marion and the late and lamented Robert Shaw as a laconic Sherriff? Robin and Marion was the sort of revisionist if perhaps more accurate retelling of history, showing the filth and the horror of what a real sword fight between two men who could wield one was like.

So now we're about to have the most revisionist Robin Hood of all, in what appears to be a Robin Hood story for our age, for the war on terror. One doubts that the obvious parallels will be hit on too much. Robin Hood, unlike Osama, will likely just be in it for the money and the excitement. The poor Sherriff, who will probably suffer from bad press, is stuck with providing homeland security for the shire of Nottingham. A thankless task, it would seem, when one notes what kind of ogre he is usually depicted as.

The latest estimate has Nottingham coming out in 2009. I can hardly wait.