Merry men are hard to come by in this sombre, pensive version of events surrounding the last days of one of cinema’s most enduring outlaws.

The savagery of 13^th century England means the law of the land is kill or be killed, leaving very little wiggle room for larking about in Lincoln green tunics, as countless earlier movies would have us believe was the norm.

In dark contrast to the bulk of previous screen adventures, this particular Robin is a far cry from the photogenic folk heroes of yore, Hugh Jackman portrays him as aged, dirty, disheveled, with an unruly mass of hair and beard, like Robert Plant after mucking out a pig shed.

He’s a troubled man, our Robin, coming to terms with the fact he’s no more than "a murderous brigand" who’s lost track of his personal body count, but is that a redemptive light he sees at the end of his long, grisly tunnel..?

After one especially bloody skirmish (and this film is peppered with shocking violence), he awakens to find himself in a secluded island priory, his many wounds being treated by the serene Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), his healing coming at a price.

He’s put to work setting traps for rabbits and tending to the orchards overseen by another priory inhabitant, known to one and all as "The Leper" (Murray Bartlett), until the arrival of a young girl whom he recognises as the daughter of his old oppo Little John (Bill Skarsgård) threatens to reopen the can of worms of his past.

There are fight scenes to ground the initial premise, arrows shot through eyes and hatchets buried in heads, but for the most part writer-director Michael Sarnoski delivers less of an action flick than he does a wordy drama that asks big questions about morality, loyalty and trying to live a good life in a land blighted by cruelty.

At its heart, it’s a study of consequences of actions, occasionally lapsing into cloying fridge magnet philosophy, like when Sister Brigid tells Robin "knives cut bread as well as they do flesh, it’s a question of balance."

Yet, it’s an intriguing relationship played out by Jackman and Comer, with parallels to Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in multi-Oscar-winner The English Patient; two battle-scarred individuals in an oasis of calm that could be disrupted by the rages of the outside world at any moment.

Both leads impress, Jackman illuminating the horrors he’s seen - and propagated - with just micro-expressions and watery, regretful eyes, and Comer’s no-nonsense, seemingly non-judgmental nun maintaining an outer calm while masking the details of the sorrowful path that led her to the priory in the first place.

Skarsgård has less to do, although his scenes with Jackman are rich in contemplation, his own memories of their days of fighting side by side recounted in the matter-of-fact manner of an outlaw left close to numb by the sheer weight of the destruction he left in his wake.

The intimacy of the actors, in tandem with the ruminative dialogue may be more in keeping with a theatre piece, but the big screen presence is firmly established by cinematographer Pat Scola’s lush framing of the film’s locations, the beauty of Murlough Bay on the coast of County Antrim drawing viewers into a verdant paradise that’s integral to Robin’s recuperative escape from the barren landscapes where he fought for so many years.

Credit is also due to Sheffield folk musician Jim Ghedi, whose atmospheric score blends traditional pastoral/Celtic tropes with intermittently jarring, atonal passages that carry the tension and menace Bernard Herrmann brought to Hitchcock movies. It contributes to a sense that whatever the outer indications of peace of mind, the demons in Robin’s head are never far from making themselves known again.

The Death of Robin Hood is released in UK cinemas on Friday 4 September.

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