William Tell review: Claes Bang fails to inspire rebellion in medieval epic

The battles are staged with gusto but a rickety screenplay and underwhelming central performance means this misses the mark.

Claes Bang as William Tell in William Tell, riding a horse

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Switzerland, 1307. With the Holy Roman Empire crumbling, the House of Habsburg tightens its grip on Europe, expanding its empire and terrorising the Swiss cantons. Until, that is, a humble huntsman inspires an uprising, unites the tribes and shapes the very foundations of modern Switzerland. So the story goes anyway. Wilhelm Tell likely never existed. But if he did, one would hope he showed more grit and zeal than Claes Bang musters in this merely competent historical epic.

Claes Bang in William Tell

Rudenz (Jonah Hauer-King), William Tell (Claes Bang), Suna (Golshifteh Farahani) and Walter (Tobias Jowett). Altitude

Written and directed by Nick Hamm (The Hole), William Tell is at least the fifth film to be based on German writer Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 play of the same name – itself based on centuries-old lore now believed to be legend – and is comfortably its most grand and violent adaptation. But with its contemporary touches come familiar flaws: bloat, tired writing and a central performance that fails to match the movie’s scale.

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Hamm and Bang render Tell not as a warrior hell-bent on defending his land but as a modest marksman scarred by wars past and reluctant to start another. The characterisation makes sense but the Danish actor fails to bring it to life. Tell is too soft. It’s a struggle to believe such a man could stir the blood of his people – or that such a tale would’ve endured so many centuries were the figure at its core so unexceptional. Bang’s folk hero has none of the formidability that he brought to Fjölnir in Robert Eggers’s The Northman. Worse still, the actor just doesn’t seem to be having any fun.

Connor Swindells, however, relishes his role as Tell’s nemesis, viceroy Albrecht Gessler. The English actor summons all the necessary piss and vinegar to play the self-described “bastard in mind and deed”. It’s Gessler’s relationship with Tell that tees up the heart of the myth and the movie’s most compelling scene, in which Tell is arrested for failing to show fealty to the king and Gessler forces him to shoot an apple from his son’s head at 20 paces.

Connor Swindells as Albrecht Gessler in William Tell

Connor Swindells as Albrecht Gessler in William Tell Altitude

If you know anything about the Tell legend it’s probably this, so don’t be surprised to see the film kick off with Tell already lining up his shot. Cold openings are fine but here it betrays a lack of confidence in the narrative – or at least in the audience’s willingness to invest in it without some up-front signposting.

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The film is packed with supporting characters, including Jonathan Pryce’s Baron Attinghausen and his flip-flopping nephew (Jonah Hauer-King), and Ben Kingsley’s golden-eyepatched King Albert and his tempestuous niece (Ellie Bamber). Few of these ancillary figures feel fleshed out and Hamm’s actors struggle to add conviction to his historical dialogue, which too often mistakes clichés for battlecries.

Ben Kingsley as King Albrecht in William Tell.

Ben Kingsley as King Albrecht in William Tell. Altitude

The skirmishes are staged with gusto, even if the size of the Swiss forces is never quite clear, and moments of tremendous savagery enliven the action. Occasionally, though, the action is undermined by the edit. Hamm sets up a surprise attack by the Swiss womenfolk on an Austrian-occupied castle before cutting to Tell’s activities elsewhere, then back to the aftermath of both scenes before providing the outcome of the castle attack in flashback. A more dynamic movie would’ve intercut the sequences to build tension and demonstrate the Swiss’s shifting fortunes.

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Admirable mountaintop cinematography and a few canny trick shots, such as when the camera is mounted on a crossbow or traces a bolt in flight, ensure that this is a handsome enough picture. But Hamm’s trite warnings about the horrors of war, rickety screenplay and a central performance that’s closer to a whimper than a bang mean this old-school historical epic misses the mark.

Authors

Sean McGeady

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