A Review of "Braveheart"

"That's my friend, Irishman, and the answer to your question is yes... I sure do dislike the Hollywood oligarchy run by
the heinous sect of you know whos who control and conquer using their you know what!"
"Mel, you're going off-script again."

Happy Friday all! Another week of moviegoing is upon us, and I have a fresh one here today that I just as recently as last Sunday I was able to finally sit down and watch.

We're here to discuss the 1995... blockbuster? I don't know, the Oscar winner? It certainly was a big time Oscar winner, taking home five of them including BEST PICTURE, so it's a wonder why I hadn't seen it. Telling the tale of the wars for Scottish Independence, starring none other than everybody's favorite well-known anti-Semite, Christ biographer, 80's mullet wearer, and semi-action hero/prolific dramatic actor, Mel Gibson... we're here to review Braveheart. I just watched this three-hour opus last Sunday with friends, and... hoo boy, let's dissect this movie through it's bloated plot and then we shall discuss!

"Any last words before we give you the axe?"
"Just make sure it isn't the gold kind, that shit smells."
"Oh son of a--, you're the fifth guy to make that joke! I
told ye, BODY SPRAY DOESN'T EXIST YET."

In 1280, King Edward "Longshanks" (Patrick McGoohan) invades and conquers Scotland following the death of the Scots king Alexander III, who left no heir to the throne. What kind of a name is "Longshanks", you ask? Well, he had long legs.... yep. Anywho, young William Wallace (James Robinson) witnesses Longshanks's execution of several Scottish nobles, suffers the deaths of his father and brother fighting against the English, and is taken abroad on a pilgrimage throughout Europe by his paternal uncle Argyle (Brian Cox), who has Wallace educated. Years later, Longshanks grants his noblemen land and privileges in Scotland, including ius primae noctis. What is "ius primae noctis"? Well, imagine you marry your wife, but you're not the first one to, you know, do the deed. Some Scottish nobleman gets to waltz into your house and do the deed first on your wedding night. So... you can imagine why that might make some people in Scotland a little upset. Meanwhile, a grown Wallace (Mel Gibson) returns to Scotland, rekindles the love with his childhood sweetheart Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack), and the two marry in secret. Wallace rescues Murron from being raped by English soldiers, but as Wallace fights off the soldiers, Murron is captured and publicly executed. In retribution, Wallace leads his clan to fight the English garrison in his hometown and sends the surviving garrison back to England with a message of rebellion for Longshanks.

Longshanks orders his son Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) to stop Wallace by any means necessary while he visits the French King to secure England's alliance with France. Alongside his friend Hamish (Brendan Gleeson), Wallace rebels against the English, and as his legend spreads, hundreds of Scots from the surrounding clans join him. Wallace leads his army to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where he decapitates the English commander Cheltham (Gerard McSorley), and sacks York after Prince Edward fails to send reinforcements there, killing Longshanks's nephew whose severed head is sent to the king. Wallace seeks the assistance of Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen), the son of nobleman Robert the Elder, a contender for the Scottish crown. Robert is dominated by his leper father, who wishes to secure the Scottish throne for his son by submitting to the English. Worried by the threat of the rebellion, Longshanks sends his son's wife Isabella of France (Sophie Marceau) to try to negotiate with Wallace as a distraction for the landing of another invasion force in Scotland.

"Help me William Wallace of Scotland, you're my only
hope."

After meeting him in person, Isabella becomes enamored with Wallace. She warns him of the coming invasion, and Wallace implores the Scottish nobility to take immediate action to counter the threat and take back their country, asking Robert the Bruce to lead. Leading the English army himself, Longshanks confronts the Scots at Falkirk. During the battle, Scottish noblemen Mornay (Alun Armstrong) and Lochlan (John Murtagh), having been bribed by Longshanks, withdraw their men, resulting in Wallace's army being routed and the death of Hamish's father, Campbell (James Cosmo). Wallace is further betrayed when he discovers Robert the Bruce was fighting alongside Longshanks; after the battle, seeing the damage he helped do to his countrymen, Robert reprimands his father and vows never to be on the wrong side again. Meanwhile, Wallace kills Lochlan and Mornay for their betrayal and wages a guerrilla war against the English, assisted by Isabella, with whom he eventually has an affair. Robert sets up a meeting with Wallace in Edinburgh, but Robert's father conspires with other nobles to capture and hand over Wallace to the English. Learning of his treachery, Robert disowns and banishes his father. Isabella exacts revenge on the now terminally ill Longshanks, who can no longer speak, by telling him that his bloodline will be destroyed upon his death as she is pregnant with Wallace's child and will ensure that Prince Edward spends as short a time as possible on the throne before Wallace's child replaces him.

In London, Wallace is brought before an English magistrate, tried for high treason, and condemned to public torture and beheading. Even whilst being disemboweled alive, Wallace refuses to submit to the king. The watching crowd, deeply moved by the Scotsman's valor, begin crying for mercy on Wallace's behalf. The magistrate offers him one final chance, asking him only to utter the word, "Mercy", and be granted a quick death. Wallace instead shouts, "Freedom!", and his cry rings through the square, the dying Longshanks hearing it at his final breath. Before being beheaded, Wallace sees a vision of Murron in the crowd, smiling at him. In 1314, Robert, now Scotland's king, leads a Scottish army before a ceremonial line of English troops on the fields of Bannockburn, where he is supposed to formally accept English rule. Instead, he invokes Wallace's memory, imploring his men to fight with him as they did with Wallace. Hamish throws Wallace's sword point-down in front of the English army, and he and the Scots chant Wallace's name as Robert leads them into battle against the English, winning the Scots their freedom.

*cue The Lord of the Rings "running across landscape"
score music*

After two hours and fifty minutes, the credits rolled on Braveheart. What did I think? First off, I thought the cinematography was really well done, and captured perfectly the dreary, wet atmosphere of a rainy Scotland of the late 1200s/early 1300s. I was immersed into the atmosphere of the time very well, having no issues getting sucked into the culture and lexicon of the time.

That being said, I almost needed subtitles for this movie. Gibson I get is a native English speaker with a native English accent. He was born in New York, after all. So his Scottish accent was thin, but admirable at the same time. Still felt real, and I could consider him Scottish if I tried. The other Scots on the other hand, they were so natively Scottish I could barely make out a word they were saying. Just a lot of Scottish-laid adjectives and adverbs being thrown at me and me struggling to process every word. Real tough to get a good grasp on. So, if you're a casual filmgoer who gets easily distracted in your house by your surroundings, I strongly recommend subtitles. In fact I can't recommend them enough. I know a lot of people hate reading their way through a movie, but I recommend it. Ha.

This movie's also woefully historically inaccurate, and it's well documented on various sites all over the internet. Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplay, has acknowledged Blind Harry's 15th-century epic poem The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie as a major inspiration for the film. In defending his script, Randall Wallace has said, "Is Blind Harry true? I don't know. I know that it spoke to my heart and that's what matters to me, that it spoke to my heart." Mel Gibson, who also directed the movie as well as starred in it, seemed to pay little to no mind on the historical inaccuracies and continued full-steam ahead throughout production. You can read all about the movie's inaccuracies all over the web.

Still, in favoring the grandiose "epic adventure" Hollywood movie feeling over committing to telling the story right and thus possibly ending up with a long-winded blowhard biopic on our hands, it did make the movie more entertaining and thus not such a chore to sit through. Ultimately, I enjoyed Braveheart. It dragged at times, it stalled here and there, but the dialogue where decipherable (lol) was gripping and I could follow the story pretty easily. It's got action, some brutality even, especially at the end, and the battle scenes are iconic. Gibson's scene wearing the blue facepaint is recognizable, as is his famous line from the movie "They may take our lives, but they'll never take OUR FREEDOM!" I could see why the movie won five Oscars, again, including Best Picture for 1995 for sure. I recommend viewing it at least once in your life if you haven't already, and are in the mood for an dramatic action piece.