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Film Review — William Tell
Nick Hamm’s romp retells the titular Swiss folk hero legend to modestly entertaining effect
Pitched somewhere between Braveheart (1995) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), writer-director Nick Hamm’s rousing take on the Gioachino Rossini-inspiring Swiss legend is a mostly enjoyable mixed bag. Based on Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 play, William Tell hasn’t been told on film as often as the Sherwood Forest outlaw with whom he shares a certain folk hero DNA, and this version certainly isn’t definitive. But despite the flaws, it’ll do nicely for now.
Against a picturesque Alpine backdrop, Tell (Claes Bang) lives a simple life as a farmer with his Muslim wife, Suna (Golshifteh Farahani), and their adopted teenage son, Walter (Tobias Jowett). Having fought in the crusades (where he met Suna — a modern contrivance not found in Schiller’s play), he has turned aside from violence and wishes to live in peace. Unfortunately, nasty old Austrian King Albert (Ben Kingsley, complete with glittering baddie eyepatch) sends beastly tax collectors to squeeze those pesky Swiss. When one of these collectors decides to rape and murder the wife of a farmer who understandably then goes into Charles Bronson mode (in a bath scene weirdly reminiscent of notorious 1978 rape-revenge film I Spit On Your Grave), Tell finds himself assisting…
