Review: The Last of Robin Hood
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
City Paper grade: C
It’s no secret that Errol Flynn was a gross drunken lech for the majority of his life, but not everyone is familiar with the particulars of his late-in-life dalliances with Beverly Aadland, a chorus girl who was severely underage at the outset of their courtship. Based on a 1961 tell-all written by Aadland’s mother, who encouraged the relationship, The Last of Robin Hood aims to be perceived as a commentary on America’s twisted-ass relationship with celebrity. In practice, however, it’s as single-minded as the most boring Errolesque hero, seizing some of the swash, but very little buckle. Kevin Kline, who nails Flynn’s fit silhouette and old-Hollywood cadence, isn’t provided with much wiggle room, shooed into wearing ascots and miming tipsy sword fights with sticklike objects in his home. As Aadland, who was just 15 when she met Flynn, Dakota Fanning draws a more interesting task, portraying a fragile actress of limited range who struggles with rawer feelings away from the camera. But it’s Susan Sarandon as Flo, Aadland’s intense stage mom, who earns the most focus from writer-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Then and now, she’s always been the tidiest scapegoat, a failed starlet so taken with vicarious fame that she chooses to overlook what the courts define as statutory rape. Though all three points of this very weird Hollywood triangle were complicit, it’s Flo who ends up shouldering the brunt of the blame, and the script’s not shy about driving that home. With all this so telegraphed, it’s difficult to view the remainder of the story as anything other than flat formality.
