"Make it count!" Brian Cox's noble baron rudely says to King John as he reluctantly signs the Magna Carta in Jonathan English's medieval action thriller. But the King has his revenge, cutting off the baron's hands and feet before projecting him over the walls of Rochester Castle in a giant sling.
Do you laugh or flinch at this sort of thing?
Well, you certainly laugh when you first catch sight of Oscar-winner Paul Giamatti as the wicked king. It's a piece of casting which may have got this audacious independent production finance but he doesn't half strain the imagination.
The good baron, meanwhile, gathers a posse of faithful toughies and holes up in Derek Jacobi's castle to thwart the king, whose forces are augmented by some thuggish Danes bent on gory pillage.
As the cast also includes James Purefoy as a sexy knight, Charles Dance as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jason Flemyng, Mackenzie Crook and Kate Mara, there's a bit of sensible acting between the blood-letting, when the screenplay allows. The production values stand up too.
Ironclad
Cert: 15
