Meanwhile the King is also trying to reconcile the broken relationship with his wayward eldest son Hal, The Prince of Wales (Timothée Chalamet). Disillusioned with the responsibilities of being the heir for some years now, he has been living as a drunken playboy amongst the poor folk of Eastcheap in a modest, wooden, two floor cottage with his friend - ex-military man and pseudo-father figure, John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton).
It comes to a head one day when Hal is summoned to court. He still has no interest in a direct parlé with his father but discovers that Percy Hotspur has amassed a substantial army on the borders of Wales to directly challenge the King's authority there. Knowing Hal's attitude to all things royal, initially Henry IV wishes to send his 2nd teenage son, Thomas (Dean-Charles Chapman), to confront Hotspur and cull the insurrection - but Hal insists that he must go with him.
On the battlefield, as the two forces face each other across a field, Hal pushes his way to the front, in a bid to override the authority of his commander, Thomas. He insists that if he challenges Percy directly, on a one on one fight to the death, this could stop the insurrection in its tracks and it will avoid mass bloodshed. Even though it did not look likely, Hal kills Percy but as a result, upstages his younger brother.
It's now a decade later. King Henry IV has finally succumbed to his mystery illness and his 2nd son Thomas is away in Scotland when the news of King's death reaches Hal. He cannot now avoid his responsibility of becoming the new King, Henry V. Within months, the interception of a French assassin to the crown reawakens a claim to the throne, by France, that was previously challenged by Edward III, the King's Great Grandfather. With the help of Falstaff, now a Knight, Hal leads the English army across the channel to face the Dauphin (Robert Pattinson), on a French field near the hamlet of Agincourt.
Just like some of Shakespeare's historical plays, this period drama is somewhat playing hard and loose with the accuracy of the events of the era. Similarly, the addition of the Bard's completely fictional Falstaff character, whose unpopular and unconventional military tactics seem to be the key to how the grossly-outnumbered English army approach the battle with the French knights on that field in 1415.
The 2 hour 20 minute runtime is often a slow build-up of scenes that are quite low-key or indoors in one-room locations, but they do build-up nicely towards the iconic Agincourt battle itself. Filmed on a modest budget of $23m, the battlefield action is quite epic. The viewer is brought right into the middle of the action, as it's filmed in close-up with countless fully armour-clad warriors and their broad swords gripped in a deadly melee in the mud. You can't really tell who is friend or foe!
Mendelsohn is unrecognisable as the barely-alive Henry IV and successfully sells the vulnerability of the throne. There's a devilishly machiavellian performance by Sean Harris as William Gascoigne, the King's Chief Justice and confidant, but it's Chalamet whose understated, slovenly delivery transcends the biggest character-arc here as the reluctant heir who eventually embraces his destiny - and ultimately becomes one of the most well known monarchs in English history.
