Great villains make melodrama, and Tim Roth, as Cunningham, is crucial to the success of this film. Resplendent in frilly court costumes, pudding-faced beneath a curly wig, he makes a foppish dandy; no matter how many times you saw "Pulp Fiction," you will never recognize him as Honey Bunny's main man. What is intriguing is the way his exterior is really a disguise: In fact, he is one of the deadliest sword fighters in England, and a sexual outlaw with an insatiable appetite, who boasts, "Love is a dunghill, and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow." The conflict in "Rob Roy" is quickly simplified: Cunningham, who stole the money, is assigned by the Marquis to capture Rob Roy, who is blamed for its disappearance. The key question is, whose word will the Marquis believe: that of Rob Roy, a peasant, or Cunningham, an aristocrat? What is intriguing in John Hurt's performance as the Marquis is the way he nurtures suspicions about Cunningham ("You are in cash, but have no means . . .") and yet is willing to have Rob Roy die, because it is a matter of saving face.
Another key player in the drama is the other powerful local aristocrat, the Duke of Argyll (Andrew Keir), who seems to support the cause of the deposed Catholic monarchy against the Protestant usurpers. Montrose offers Rob Roy forgiveness of his debt if he will denounce Argyll as a Jacobite, but Rob Roy refuses, and eventually it is Argyll who arranges for the whole matter to be settled in a sword fight between Rob Roy and Cunningham.
The sword fighting sequence, staged by William Hobbs, is the best of its sort ever done. In most movie sword fights, the participants leap about effortlessly, their blades shimmering and clashing. Here we get the sense of the deadly stakes, and the great physical effort involved.
Cunningham chooses a rapier, Rob Roy a broadsword (their weapons reflect their personalities), and the fight is punctuated by passages of dead silence, except for heavy breathing. They become very tired.
They are both wounded. The pauses grow longer, until the duel seems like a chess match in which thought counts for more than action. It is one of the great action sequences in movie history, and "Rob Roy" is a fabulous entertainment.
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