Paul Greengrass’ “The Uprising” is a blood-soaked investigation into a question Christians have wrestled with for centuries: What happens when flawed human beings become convinced that God is on their side?
Based on the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the historical epic stars Andrew Garfield as the Ploughman, a fictional farmer who becomes an unlikely leader of a rebellion against the young King Richard II, alongside Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), John Ball (Jamie Bell) and Alyce (Thomasin McKenzie). The film is set in a bleak era: England is reeling from the Black Death, which killed thousands, and crushing taxation and vast inequality have left ordinary people at their breaking point.
But “The Uprising” is not interested in presenting a black-and-white story of virtuous peasants overthrowing evil rulers like many medieval films. Nearly everyone believes his or her cause is righteous, and nearly everyone finds a way to invoke God in defending it without examining their own behavior.
It becomes apparent early in the film that the king’s authority is treated as divinely sanctioned. A priest tells the young ruler, a moldable and tortured young man struggling to forge his own path, “God chose you to do His will.” Meanwhile, the rebels are increasingly convinced that justice, and God, is on their side, no matter how brutal their tactics become to achieve their goals.
The result is a disturbing portrait of what happens when people stop submitting their understanding of justice to a biblical understanding of God and instead, adopt the authority to dispense His judgment themselves.
Garfield’s Ploughman is grieving, desperate and surrounded by people who have little recourse against a system stacked against them. His demand for justice is understandable; audiences will empathize with his sad-eyed fight for a better life. But as the rebellion grows, so does anger, and justice becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from vengeance.
As the rebellion rages, churches are desecrated, enemies are slaughtered (there are some particularly brutal scenes featuring beheadings), betrayal runs rampant and mob violence spirals beyond anyone’s control. Those who began by resisting cruelty and fighting for justice become capable of tremendous cruelty and injustice themselves.
It’s here that “The Uprising” offers its strongest message for Christian audiences: Being genuinely wronged does not make every response to that wrong righteous (Romans 12:19 warns Christians, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath,” before declaring, “‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”).
The characters in “The Uprising” have enormous difficulty leaving vengeance to God, and the film doesn’t grant either side moral superiority. Attaching God’s name to blind human ambition, Greengrass suggests, leads to devastating consequences.
The film recognizes that injustice demands a response, but it refuses to suggest that suffering grants the oppressed unlimited moral license. Over the course of the roughly two-hour film, it’s clear that violence inherently changes the people who wield it.
On that note, viewers should approach “The Uprising” with considerable caution. It’s not an easy film to watch, nor is it intended to be. This is an incredibly graphic film, filled with bloody combat, brutal killings, decapitations, relentless carnage and disturbing scenes of mob violence. Sensitive viewers and certainly younger audiences should take the film’s graphic content seriously.
The violence isn’t without purpose, however. At one point in the film, after witnessing tremendous violence, Ploughman bleakly asks, “Where is God in all of this?” That question lingers over the duration of the film. But despite the film’s dark visuals and overall theme, it’s not without hope. The movement away from vengeance towards grace and community toward the close of “The Uprising” does give the film an ultimately satisfying arc.
The film’s spiritual conclusions will likely invite debate among Christian viewers, as there aren’t easy answers, and it’s certainly rife with violence and disturbing imagery. But beneath the bloodshed is a timely and necessary warning about the ease with which a “bastardized” form of Christianity, to quote Garfield, can be enlisted in service of sinful desires, whether it be power or revenge.
“The Uprising” is rated R and opens in theaters on Sept. 10.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]
