William Tell

William Tell’s status as a folk hero makes his story kind of a Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves for the Swiss, only they're taking a country from the rich (Austria) and giving it to the poor. (Swiss! How times have changed.) It's roughly as historically accurate as that Kevin Costner film too, very much leaning into a ‘print the legend’ view of history and not bothering too much with pesky facts or the possibility that Tell never existed. That all said, if you can get past how old-fashioned it all feels and lean into the Braveheart-esque fight for freedom, it's rather fun.

Director Nick Hamm has rooted his story in the William Tell play by Friedrich von Schiller, who re-popularised Tell in the early 1800s, but he's added some modern flourishes. This Tell, played by Dane Claes Bang, has a background fighting in the Crusades but a strong anti-authoritarian streak that makes him quick to stand up for the needy and the put-upon. A series of escalating encounters with the Austrian authorities of King Albert (Ben Kingsley), embodied by tax collector Gessler (Connor Swindells), turn him from farmer into leader of a minor uprising, but he's all too aware that he's putting his wife Suna (Golshifteh Farahani) and son Walter (Tobias Jowett) at risk.

Bang is good in the lead: unshowy and serious, but able to speak up when called upon; shaven-headed instead of sporting a Costner mullet. Hamm has assembled an impressive cast around him: Rafe Spall is Tell’s nobleman BFF alongside Emily Beecham as his wife; Jonathan Pryce pops up as another saintly baron, while Jonah Hauer-King and Ellie Bamber side with Tell against the law.

This is more a film of skirmishes than all-out battles, perhaps a symptom of budget limits, but Hamm effectively turns the screws on his characters so the stakes climb steadily. The script isn't quite as assured, however: the dialogue is cod Shakespearean at times, which does give a medieval sheen but also a tinge of artificiality. Worse, the ending is blatant sequel bait of the most irritating kind, just when you're about to celebrate how well it's all turned out. Turn off two minutes before the end, however, and you have a really effective throwback.