In 2010, on this day film director Quentin Tarantino's aesthetically violent and stylistically excessive movie "Robin Hood: Outlaw" premiered in cinemas across Great Britain.

OutlawThe director had been captivated by Angus Donald's novel of the same name, in which rather than being the altruistic aristocrat of popular myth, the protagonist is portrayed as a medieval Don Corleone, the "Godfather of Sherwood Forest". "He is a dark and violent man. He does, however, have a code of honour".

The author (formerley a journalist who covered the war in Afganistan) explored the darker, more violent and much less palatable figure in the 1450 ballad entitled "Robin Hood and the Monk". And doubtless the bloodshed and violence reported from the caves of Tora Bora also influenced the narrative too.

The movie enabled lead star Russell Crowe to recapture the success of Gladiator, in which he had played Maximus Decimus Meridius, a single-minded, if perhaps not so ruthless killer.